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University  of  California 


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THE 


NEW  DISCUSSION  OF  THE  TRINITY; 


CONTAINING    NOTICES    OF 


PROFESSOR    HUNTINGTON'S 


RECENT    DEFENCE    OF    THAT    DOCTRINE, 


REPRINTED     FROM      ''  THE     CHRISTIAN     EXAMINER,"       %i  THE      MONTHLY      RELIGIOUS 
MAGAZINE,"     "  THE     MONTHLY     JOURNAL     OF     THE     UNITARIAN     ASSOCI- 
ATION.''   AND     u  THE     CHRISTIAN     REGISTER." 


TOGETHER    WITH 

SERMONS, 

BY   REV.   THOS.   STARR  &ING,  AND 
DR.  ORVILLE  DE^ 


BOSTON: 
AMERICAN    UNITARIAN    ASSOCIATION. 

1867. 


\ 


INTRODUCTORY    NOTICE 


THE  following  articles  are  mostly  reprinted 
from  various  periodicals.  The  Sermon  by  Dr. 
Dewey,  which  closes  the  volume,  has  not  been 
published  before,  arid  the  Discourses  by  Mr.  King 
are  reprinted  from  a  pamphlet. 

The  occasion  of  all  these  papers  was  a  sermon 
of  Dr.  Huntington,  in  which,  after  having  occu- 
pied a  Unitarian  pulpit  for  a  long  number  of 
years,  he  asserted  and  defended  the  Church  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity.  Such  an  event  made  it 
necessary  for  his  brethren  and  friends  in  the 
Unitarian  ranks  to  reconsider  their  position. 
When  one  so  able  and  earnest  as  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton  was  led  to  renounce  the  doctrine  they  had 
so  long  preached  in  common,  a  due  respect  to 
him,  as  well  as  regard  to  the  truth,  required 
them  to  give  a  careful  and  patient  attention  to 
his  reasons. 


IV  INTRODUCTORY   NOTICE. 

The  results  of  the  re-examination  of  their 
doctrinal  position  appeared  in  several  articles  in 
Unitarian  periodicals,  and  sermons  from  Unita- 
rian pulpits.  The  arguments  of  Professor  Hun- 
tington  were  in  general  candidly  examined  and 
fully  answered.  The  result  of  the  discussion 
is  apparently  not  unfavorable  to  the  Unitarian 
side  of  the  question.  None  of  the  reasons  of 
Professor  Huntington  seemed  weighty  enough 
to  change  the  views  of  his  former  friends,  or  to 
induce  any  of  them  to  imitate  his  example. 
When  the  dust  of  the  conflict  cleared  away,  the 
forces  of  the  Unitarians  were  found  occupying 
their  former  position,  or  perhaps  one  a  little  in 
advance. 

The  result  would  perhaps  have  been  different 
if  Professor  Huntington  had  reached  any  new 
and  large  statement  of  the  Trinity,  which  should 
take  up  into  itself  and  harmonize  the  old  antag- 
onisms. Such  a  statement  might  have  carried 
the  whole  Church  forward  to  a  higher  and  more 
commanding  platform.  But  when,  instead,  he 
only  fell  back  on  the  old  formulas,  he  confessed 
his  inability  to  reconcile  the  contradictions  which 
had  so  long  separated  persons  equally  intelligent, 
pious,  and  sincere.  The  old  Trinitarian  statement 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTICE.  V 

had  never  satisfied  Unitarians,  —  the  Unitarian 
statement  had  not  satisfied  Trinitarians.  Obvi- 
ously, therefore,  a  new  statement  was  needed, 
more  comprehensive  and  profound  than  either. 
Merely  to  reassert  the  old  doctrine,  was  to  leave 
the  difficulty  where  he  found  it.  To  declare  that 
the  majority  of  the  Church  was  on  the  side  of  the 
Trinitarians,  was  to  utter  a  truism.  To  contend 
that  the  Trinity  was  the  only  source  of  Christian 
piety  and  humanity,  was  to  hazard  a  generaliza- 
tion somewhat  larger  than  the  facts  seemed  to 
warrant.  Consequently,  the  new  position  taken 
by  Dr.  Huntington  is  significant  only  as  regards 
himself,  insignificant  as  regards  the  general  doc- 
trinal tendencies  of  the  Church.  Its  only  mean- 
ing is  that  the  Trinity  suits  his  peculiar  tendency 
of  mind  better  than  the  Unity. 


CONTENTS 


Page 
DR.  HUNTINGTON  ON  THE  TRINITY.    From  the  Christian 


Examiner 


PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT  FOR  THE   TRINITY. 

From  the  Monthly  Journal  of  the  A.  U.  A.  .        .        .      45 

TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE    DOCTRINE   OF   THE    NEW 

TESTAMENT.    By  KEV.  T.  S.  KING          ...      90 

DR.  HUNTINGTON  ON  THE  TRINITY.     By  REV.  E.  H. 

SEARS 144 

COMMUNICATIONS  TO  THE  CHRISTIAN  REGISTER:  — 
I.  DR.  HUNTINGTON'S  MISQUOTATION  OF  NEANDER 

ON  THE  TRINITY.    By  E.  A 161 

n.  DR.   HUNTINGTON'S    QUOTATIONS   FROM    SCRIP- 
TURE IN  PROOF  OF  THE  TRINITY.    By  E.  A.    169 

III.  DR.  HUNTINGTON  AND  DR.  POND.    By  R.  P.  S.     176 

IV.  LETTER  FROM  PROF.  HUNTINGTON       .        .        .181 
V.  REVIEW    OF    DR.  HUNTINGTON'S  LETTER.     By 

E.  A.  189 


V1U  CONTENTS. 

VI.  GRADUAL  DEVELOPMENT  or  THE  DOCTRINE  OF 

THE  TRINITY.     By  E.  A 197 

VII.  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    THE    TRINITY    IN    THE 

FOURTH  CENTURY.    By  E.  A.       .        .        .    209 
VIII.  FURTHER  ILLUSTRATIONS  PF  NEANDER'S  VIEWS, 
AND   OF   DR.    HUNTINGTON'S    QUOTATIONS, 
WITH  A  PRACTICAL  IMPROVEMENT  OF  THE 
SUBJECT.    By  E.  A 217 

THE  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIAN  CREED.    By  REV.  ORVILLE 

DEWEY,  D.  D 225 


DR.  HUNTINGTON  ON  THE  TRINITY.1 


[From  the  Christian  Examiner.] 


Christian  Believing  and  Living.  Sermons  by  F.  D. 
HUNTINGTON,  D.  D.,  Preacher  to  the  University, 
and  Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Har- 
vard College.  Boston:  Crosby,  Nichols,  &  Co. 
1860. 

IN  the  volume  of  Sermons  thus  designated  we  grate- 
fully acknowledge  a  rich  contribution  to  homiletic  liter- 
ature, and  not  only  so,  but  a  real  addition  to  the  senti- 
mental life  of  the  time.  Dr.  Huntington  gives  proof  in 
these  discourses  of  a  special  vocation  for  the  preacher's 
office,  not  always  or  often  manifest  in  otherwise  able  and 
worthy  divines.  A  born  ecclesiastes,  and  not  merely  a 
man  of  fine  powers,  who  from  taste  or  accidental  deter- 
mination has  assumed  the  function.  It  needs  something 
more  than  distinguished  ability,  —  more  than  learning 
and  "humane  eloquence,"  however  coupled  with  purity 
of  manners  and  acquiescence  in  the  creed  of  the  Church, 

*  The  extra-large  edition  of  the  Christian  Examiner  for  March, 
1860,  in  which  this  article  appeared,  having  been  exhausted, 
the  proprietor  of  that  journal  permits  its  republication  in  this 
volume. 

1 


2  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY. 

—  to  fully  furnish  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel.  It  needs, 
above  all  other  graces  and  gifts,  a  religious  nature  and 
an  ecclesiastical  spirit.  And  these  Dr.  Huntington  ex- 
hibits in  an  eminent  degree.  He  possesses  that  quality, 
half  intellectual,  half  moral,  —  that  combination  of  the 
spiritual  mind  and  the  earnest  soul,  fervid  temper,  and 
devout  imagination,  —  which  constitutes  what  may  be 
termed  a  genius  for  religion.  As  a  preacher  to  the 
conscience  and  the  feelings  on  topics  of  spiritual  life 
and  purely  practical  import,  he  has  few  superiors  in 
this  generation.  No  candid  reader,  however  he  may 
criticise  and  repudiate  the  author's  theological  views, 
can  fail  to  perceive  or  refuse  to  acknowledge  the  evi- 
dences of  strong  religious  sensibility  and  spiritual  fer- 
vor which  broadly  pervade  and  distinguish  these  com- 
positions. 

But  the  more  decided  his  gift  and  success  in  his  own 
legitimate  province,  the  more  we  regret  that  he  should 
ever  turn  aside  from  the  inculcation  of  practical  truth 
to  argue  questions  of  speculative  theology,  where  at  once 
his  want  of  the  necessary  qualifications  for  such  discus- 
sion, and  the  discrepance  of  abounding  zeal  and  defec- 
tive knowledge,  of  dazzling  assurance  and  dim  apprehen- 
sion, are  painfully  apparent.  There  are  few  to  whom 
it  is  given,  like  the  great  preachers  of  reviving  Chris- 
tendom in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  to  unite 
intellectual  vision,  dialectic  subtilty,  and  spiritual  depth 
with  the  popular  gift  of  practical  discourse.  Dr.  Hun- 
tington is  not  one  of  these.  He  discourses  much  better 
than  he  sees,  and  is  abler  in  illustrating  given  truths 
than  he  is  in  discriminating  truth  from  falsehood.  The 
moment  he  enters  the  domain  of  theology  proper,  we 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  3 

miss  the  scientific  mind  which  religion  needs  not,  but 
which  theology  may  not  dispense  with.  We  miss  the 
intuitive  as  well  as  the  dialectic  faculty.  We  miss  the 
penetration  and  critical  tact,  and,  more  than  all,  the 
learning,  which  are  needed  to  light  up  effectually  the 
dark  questions  of  divinity,  or  to  make  the  discussion  of 
them  profitable,  or  even  —  to  thoughtful  minds  —  toler- 
able. 

The  Sermon  entitled  "Life,  Salvation,  and  Comfort 
for  Man  in  the  Divine  Trinity,"  the  most  elaborate  in 
this  collection,  illustrates  our  remark,  provoking  criti- 
cism not  so  much  of  the  views  maintained  as  of  most  of 
the  reasoning  employed  in  their  defence.  Coming  from 
one  whose  former  position  was  known  to  be  adverse  to 
the  doctrine  here  professed,  whose  sermon  of  five  years 
since,  to  that  effect,  is  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of  many, 
and  who  therefore  stands  before  the  public  in  the  atti- 
tude of  a  recent  convertite,  this  particular  sermon  has 
awakened  an  interest  by  no  means  due  to  its  real  value 
as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  volume.  Its  interest 
is  that  of  confession,  not  of  thought.  Our  first  impres- 
sion of  it  raised  in  us  the  question :  For  whom  was  it 
written  ?  For  the  learned  or  the  unlearned,  laymen  or 
theologians  ?  It  seemed  to  us  equally  unfitted  for  either 
class.  Dr.  Huntington  surely  could  not  suppose  that 
his  exposition  of  the  doctrine  he  discusses,  and  his  rea- 
soning about  it,  would  be  satisfactory  to  theologians  of 
any  school.  He  must  have  felt  the  inadequacy  of  his 
statement  and  defence  to  meet  the  requirements  of  Bib- 
lical scholars.  And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  considered 
as  addressed  to  a  mixed  audience,  the  sermon,  notwith- 
standing its  fervid  tone  and  fascinating  unction,  is  in  the 


4  DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY. 

dogmatic  and  expository  parts  of  it  too  abstruse  and 
metaphysical  for  popular  edification.  As  a  theological 
argument,  competent  critics  will  regard  it  as  worthless. 
Dr.  Huntington  does  not  seem  to  us  to  have  even  un- 
derstood the  real  import  of  the  dogma  he  so  zealously 
maintains,  still  less  its  historic  origin  and  doctrinal  bear- 
ings. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  a  full  and  conscientious  recep- 
tion of  any  doctrine,  that  one  should  be  able  to  defend 
it  with  logical  or  theological  proofs.  A  man's  confession 
may  be  sincere,  although  his  apprehension  be  imperfect 
and  his  reasons  inadequate.  We  believe  in  the  Augus- 
tinian  maxim  which  puts  faith  in  religion  before  under- 
standing. Fides  pracedit  intettectum.  But  when  the 
confessor  of  a  doctrine  does  undertake  to  expound  and 
to  teach  it,  —  when,  moreover  that  confessor  is  also  Pro- 
fessor in  a  learned  University,  —  and  when  especially, 
as  in  this  case,  he  has  come  to  his  adopted  views  from 
another  confession  and  creed,  —  we  expect  the  intellectus 
also.  And  this  is  precisely  what  we  miss  in  this  dis- 
course. In  our  comments  upon  it  we  wish  it  understood 
once  for  all  that  we  are  not  arguing  against  the  Trinity  * 
as  conceived  by  the  early  Church,  and  expressed  in  the 
so-called  Apostles'  Creed  ;  our  polemic  relates  solely  to 


*  "We  use  this  word,  in  deference  to  ecclesiastical  custom,  to 
denote  the  aboriginal  Christian  doctrine  of  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost,  —  i.  e.  of  a  God  self-revealing  in  his  Word  and  self- 
communicating  by  his  Spirit.  The  word  Trinity  (trinitas,  rpias), 
which,  late  in  the  second  century  or  early  in  the  third,  was  used  to 
express  this  idea,  by  emphasizing  the  numerical  element,  uninten- 
tionally colored  it  with  something  alien.  The  universal  preva- 
lence of  the  doctrine  itself  in  the  early  Church  is  patent  to  every 


DR.    HUXTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  5 

Dr.  Huntington's  view,  which  confounds  that  doctrine 
with  an  ecclesiastical  and  metaphysical  Tripersonality, 
and  proposes  a  philosophem  of  after  ages  as  a  funda- 
mental article  of  the  Christian  revelation.  A  triad  of 
Christian  sanctities  —  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  — 
is  one  thing;  the  doctrine  of  Tripersonality,  whether 
true  or  false,  is  another  and  a  very  different  thing.  The 
last  is  no  part  of  the  Gospel,  so  far  as  the  Gospel  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament.  Nor 
is  it  the  creed  of  the  early  Church.  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton  confounds  the  two  in  one  assertion,  and  concludes 
them  both  in  one  evangelical  authority.  It  is  this 
tripersonality  of  God,  as  expressed  in  the  pseudo-Atha- 
nasian  Creed,  which  he  affirms  to  be  the  true  evan- 
gelical Trinity,  —  the  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament. 
When  this  notion  is  thrust  dogmatically  forward  as 
one  of  the  essentials  of  the  Christian  faith,  as  of  bind- 
ing authority,  and  as  Scripture  doctrine,  we  feel  it  to 
be  a  falsity  and  an  offence.  And  knowing  as  we  do 
that  many  well-meaning  and  pious  Christians  cannot 
find  in  it  the  "  Life,  Salvation,  and  Comfort"  which  Dr. 
Huntington  promises,  but,  on  the  contrary,  are  much 
disturbed  when  that  is  urged  as  divinely  authorized 


student  of  ecclesiastical  history.  It  appears  conspicuous  in  vari- 
ous monuments  which  have  come  down  to  us,  —  among  others,  in 
the  clumsy  figure  of  Ignatius  (Epistle  to  the  Ephesians),  which 
represents  Christ  as  the  pulley  and  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  rope  by 
which  we  are  hoisted  to  God. 

It  is  matter  of  regret  that  the  "  Unitarians  "  of  a  former  genera- 
tion were  led  by  their  needful  and  timely  protest  against  Trinita- 
rian dogmatism  into  a  position  of  seeming  hostility,  and,  in  some 
cases,  of  real  indifference,  to  this  doctrine. 


6  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

Gospel  truth,  with  which  their  own  consciousness  can- 
not adjust  itself,  we  feel  bound  to  protest  against  the 
assertions  and  assumptions  of  this  plea. 

It  is  somewhat  unexpected  to  find  ourselves  in  the 
year  of  grace  1860  gravely  reiterating  what  Trinita- 
rian scholars  of  critical  repute  now  concede,  that  the 
dogma  of  the  Tripersonality  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the 
New  Testament.  Nor  can  we  be  expected  to  retrace 
in  detail  the  weary  commonplaces  of  this  debate.  We 
have  neither  the  spirit  nor  the  space  to  lug  forth  and 
spread  out  the  mouldy  straw  which  other  generations 
have  threshed  so  soundly.  All  the  arguments  which 
human  wit  could  devise  to  extort  from  the  Scripture  a 
confession  of  the  Three  Persons,  have  been  disposed  of 
before  Dr.  Huntington  came  upon  the  stage.  The 
books  which  contain  them  and  the  answers  to  them 
have  long  been  gathered  to  their  kindred  dust  in  the 
"  dumb  forgetfulness  "  of  old  libraries.  Let  those  who 
are  curious  seek  them  there.  We  shall  not  resuscitate 
them.  Our  purpose  is  confined  to  a  brief  examination 
of  some  of  Dr.  Huntington's  positions. 

With  obvious  reason,  the  preacher  has  chosen  for  the 
text  of  his  discourse  the  solitary  passage  of  the  New 
Testament  in  which  "Father,"  "Son,"  and  "Holy 
Ghost"  are  named  together  (Matt,  xxviii.  19),  and 
from  which  the  Church  in  after  time  derived  the  bap- 
tismal formula.  He  finds  in  these  words  "  a  ministry, 
an  initiatory  ordinance,  a  creed."  And  the  creed, 
according  to  him,  is  "  the  Triune  name."  Here  at  the 
threshold  a  wanton  misstatement  and  a  gross  perver- 
sion of  the  fact.  Three  names  are  mentioned,  Father, 


DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY.  7 

Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  Of  triunity,  of  the  three-in-one 
or  the  one-in-three,  not  a  syllable,  not  the  faintest  inti- 
mation. The  words  were  uttered  at  the  parting  of 
Jesus  with  his  disciples.  "Now  if  ever,"  says  Dr. 
Huntington,  "  Christ  will  distinctly  proclaim  the  doc- 
trine of  Christendom."  Be  it  so!  If  then  the  doc- 
trine of  Christendom,  according  to  the  intent  of  the 
Master,  were  the  Tripersonality  of  God,  "  Christ  will 
distinctly  proclaim"  it.  Has  he  done  so?  He  has  pro- 
claimed three  sanctities.  Of  triunity,  of  tripersonality, 
we  repeat,  not  a  word,  not  the  faintest  intimation.  The 
attempt  to  find  it  here  but  proves,  in  the  preacher's 
own  language,  "  how  desperate  are  the  shifts  of  a  de- 
termined theory."  .  We  thank  him  for  these  words, — 
they  express  precisely  what  we  have  felt  at  many 
points  of  his  argument. 

The  discourse  proceeds.  "  Our  faith  is  summoned  to 
the  three  persons  of  the  one  God :  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost.  No  hint  is  given  that  there  is 
any  difference  of  nature,  dignity,  duration,  power,  or 
glory  between  them.  There  is  nothing  in  the  situation, 
the  relations,  or  the  contents  of  the  Divine  formula*  to 
suggest  that  either  of  the  three  is  less  than  the  others, 


*  We  do  not  understand  that  our  Saviour  meant  to  prescribe 
in  those  words,  "Baptizing  them  in  the  name,"  &c.,  a  formula  to 
be  used  in  the  rite  of  baptism,  nor  does  it  appear  that  the  words 
were  so  construed  or  this  formula  adopted  in  the  Apos'tolic  age. 
The  word  ovopa  here  is  redundant  (see  Schleusner,  sub  voc.), 
and  the  sentence  may  be  rendered  :  "  Baptizing  (i.  e.  initiating) 
them  into  (the  knowledge  of)  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost."  The  Father  the  Supreme  God,  the  Son  the  Redeemer 
of  the  world,  the  Holy  Ghost  the  Sanctifier. 


8  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

or  less  than  God."  Why  should  there  be  ?  what  need 
of  any  hint?  Does  it  necessarily  follow,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  hint  to  the  contrary,  that  where  three  are 
named  together,  the  three  are  equal?  Was  it  likely 
that  those  whom  our  Saviour  addressed  on  this  occa- 
sion would,  without  a  "  hint,"  infer  that  equality  in  the 
three  here  named?  On  the  contrary,  so  foreign  was 
the  notion  of  such  an  equality  from  all  Judaistic  habits 
of  thought  and  belief,  that,  had  the  Master  intended  to 
teach  it,  we  must  suppose  he  would  "distinctly  pro- 
claim "  it,  that  there  might  be  no  mistake.  We  there- 
fore turn  the  tables,  and  say,  No  hint  is  given  that 
there  is  any  equality  of  nature,  dignity,  duration,  power, 
or  glory  between  them.  There  is  nothing  in  the  situa- 
tion, the  relations,  or  the  contents  of  the  Divine  for- 
mula, to  suggest  that  either  of  the  three  is  level  with 
'  the  others,  or  that  more  than  one  of  them  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  God. 

"  Each  of  them,"  continues  Dr.  Huntington,  "  is  else- 
where in  the  Scriptures  referred  to  as  God.  Each  of 
them  is  distinguished  [?]  from  the  others  by  the  per- 
sonal pronouns.  To  each  of  them  Divine  attributes 
and  Divine  acts  are  ascribed,  and  to  each  Divine  wor- 
ship is  offered."  Waiving  or  granting  the  question  as 
it  regards  the  Son,  where,  we  ask,  is  the  Holy  Ghost 
referred  to  in  the  Scriptures  as  personal  God  distinct 
from  the  Father  ?  Where  in  the  Scriptures  is  supreme 
worship 'offered  to  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost?  "  The 
term  Trinity  is  not  applied  to  the  doctrine  in  the  Bible, 
but  it  is  a  definite  and  just  description  of  what  the  Bi- 
ble teaches."  If  so,  we  agree  that  "  there  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  be  adopted  and  used."  Only  let  us 


DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY.  9 

see  to  it  what  we  mean  by  Trinity,  and  not  confound  it 
with  Tripersonality,  —  the  baptismal  confession  with 
the  ecclesiastical  philosophem. 

Farther  on  (p.  369)  we  read,  as  an  argument  for  the 
personal  Godhead  (distinct  from  the  other  two)  of  the 
Holy  Spirit :  "  The  baptismal  formula  of  the  text  would 
alone  put  the  personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  a  ground 
of  reasonable  certainty  through  the  most  natural  under- 
standing of  the  words How  forced  would  be 

the  suppression,  —  and  putting  what  a  repulsive  am- 
biguity on  this  final  and  momentous  commission  of  the 
Lord's  followers  for  the  conversion  of  the  world,  —  if 
he  first  mentioned  two  names  which,  as  all  alike  agree, 
are  names  of  distinct  persons,  and  then  slipped  in  with- 
out notice  or  explanation  a  name  which  purports  [?] 
to  be  just  as  much  the  name  of  a  person  as  the  other  two, 
but  which  is  only  a  common  noun  signifying  an  imma- 
terial influence  ! "  Was  ever  such  reasoning !  The 
phrase  Holy  Ghost  was  a  term  in  common  use  among 
the  Jews  of  that  day.  It  was  used  to  denote  a  par- 
ticular form  of  Divine  agency,  or  a  special  effect  of 
that  agency,  or  a  special  beatitude  of  humanity,  as 
where  John  the  Baptist  says  of  the  coming  Christ : 
"  He  shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with 
fire."  It  was  spoken  of,  not  as  a  being  distinct  from 
God,  with  a  separate  life  and  volition,  but  as  God  him- 
self in  that  particular  manifestation,  or  God's  reflec- 
tion and  witness  in  man.  Why  should  Christ  then 
stop  to  explain  what  none  of  his  hearers,  we  have  rea- 
son to  suppose,  would  be  likely  to  mistake  ?  Dr. 
Huntington's  position  in  regard  to  this  passage  is,  that 
where  three  are  named  together,  and  two  of  the  three 


10  DR.   HUNTING! ON    ON    THE   TRINITY. 

are  persons,  it  follows  that,  without  an  explanation  to 
the  contrary  on  the  part  of  the  speaker,  the  third  must 
be  understood  to  be  a  person  also.  We  know  of  no 
grammatical  or  rhetorical  rule  which  necessitates  such 
an  inference,  especially  where,  as  in  the  present  case, 
the  third  is  distinguished  by  the  neuter  pronoun  from 
the  other  two,  which  are  masculine.  If  it  were  so,  the 
converse  would  be  equally  true,  —  that  where  two  of 
the  three  are  impersonal,  the  other  must  be  impersonal 
also.  And  so  we  might  infer  the  impersonality  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  from  1  John  v.  8.  If  the  "water" 
and  the  "blood"  are  not  personal,  then  neither  is 
the  "  spirit "  personal  according  to  this  way  of  rea- 
soning. 

In  the  Supper  discourse  (John  xiv.,  xv.,  xvi.)  our 
Saviour,  it  is  true,  as  the  preacher  remarks,  personifies 
the  Holy  Spirit  with  the  word  Trapa/cA^ros,  which  our 
version  renders  Comforter.  But  no  unprejudiced  reader 
can  fail  to  perceive  that  the  personification  here  is 
purely  rhetorical.  "And  I  will  ask  the  Father,  and 
he  shall  give  you  another  Comforter,  that  he  may  be 
with  you  forever ;  the  spirit  of  truth,  which  *  the  world 
cannot  receive  because  it  seeth  it  *  not,  neither  know- 
eth  it ;  *  but  ye  know  it,  for  it  stayeth  by  you  and  shall 
be  in  you.  I  will  not  send  you  away  orphans,  I  am' 
coming  to  you."  Mark  how  Jesus  identifies  the  Com- 
forter with  himself.  It  is  his  own  influence  which  they 
are  to  experience  after  he  is  gone,  and  which  will  be 
to  them  as  if  he  returned  to  them  in  person.  And  so 


*  Not  whom  and  him,  as  in  our  version.    We  translate  from 
TischendorPs  text. 


DR.   HTJNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY.  11 

in  the  other  three  passages  of  this  discourse,  in  which 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  designated  by  the  word  Comforter. 
It  is  not  spoken  of  as  a  separate  existence,  but  as  an 
influence  proceeding  from  God  and  Christ,  whose  agency 
is  personified  by  that  term.  The  difference  between  a 
rhetorical  personification  and  an  apodictic  declaration 
of  personality  is  too  obvious  to  need  elucidation.  The 
preacher  asks :  "  In  those  tender  and  solemn  conversa- 
tions, charged  with  the  only  hope  and  counsel  to  the 
disciples  about  to  be  bereaved,  and  indeed  to  the  world 
of  mankind,  is  it  possible  that  our  Saviour  was  dealing 
in  dark  paradoxes  or  uninterpreted  figures  of  rhetoric  ?  " 
It  is  not  only  possible,  but  an  undeniable  fact,  as  the 
preacher,  were  he  more  familiar  with  the  Scripture  to 
which  he  appeals,  and  less  inaccurate,  would  have 
known.  Not  to  speak  of  the  figure  of  the  "  house  of 
many  mansions,"  and  the  "  way,"  &c.,  and  the  figure 
of  the  "  Vine,"  which  occupies  with  its  amplifications  a 
third  part  of  the  fifteenth  chapter,  our  Saviour  em- 
phatically declares,  toward  the  close  of  this  discourse, 
—  referring  to  what  he  had  been  saying,  —  "These 
things  have  I  spoken  unto  you  in  proverbs,  but  the 
time  cometh  when  I  shall  no  more  speak  unto  you  in 
proverbs,  but  I  shall  show  you  plainly  of  the  Father." 
The  word  here  rendered  "  proverb,"  Trapoi/u'a,  signifies 
that  very  thing  against  which  the  preacher  protests,  — 
"  dark  paradoxes."  See  Schleusner,  who  defines  the 
word,  in  its  application  to  this  passage,  "  sententiam 
gravem,  obscuram,  abstrusam  et  per  figuras  propositam 

sermonem  obscuriorem  et  intellectu  difficilio- 

rem  qui  explanatione  eget." 

And  now  we  come  to  a  passage  wherein  it  is  impos- 


12  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

sible  to  acquit  the  author  of  either  great  carelessness 
of  statement  or  great  disingenuousness.  "  Many  other 
passages  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  can  be  wrested 
from  their  obvious  meaning  "  —  that  is,  of  the  person- 
ality of  the  Spirit  —  "  only  by  a  similar  violence.  It 
is  so  with  the  Apostolical  benedictions,  which  were 
evidently  intended  to  be  what  they  have  so  generally 
proved,  the  familiar  repositories  and  oft-repeated  sym- 
bols of  the  great  central  facts  of  Christian  theology.* 
Apart  from  some  preconceived  purpose,  who  would 
ever  suppose  there  was  a  sudden  lapse  or  deviation 
from  the  personal  to  the  impersonal  style,  on  getting 
half  or  two  thirds  through  that  worshipful  and  pre- 
eminent blessing,  (  The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
and  the  love  of  God  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  be  with  us  all  evermore '  ? "  Now  what  is  the 
obvious  understanding  of  this  passage,  and  the  allega- 
tion contained  in  it  ?  The  writer  is  speaking  of  the  per- 
sonality of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  it  is  doing  violence,  he 
maintains,  to  the  language  of  his  text  not  to  find  it 
there,  as  also  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  chapters 
of  John ;  and  then,  in  the  passage  we  have  cited,  he 
pleads  that  this  is  the  obvious  meaning  of  many  other 
passages  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  which  can  only 
be  wrested  from  that  meaning  by  "similar  violence." 
He  does  not  specify  one  of  those  passages  by  so  much 
as  a  reference  to  chapter  and  verse,  but,  hiding  himself 
in  a  prudent  vagueness,  he  continues,  "  It  is  so  with  the 
Apostolical  benedictions."  The  Apostolical  benedic- 
tions, then,  he  would  have  it  inferred,  (from  his  use 

*  A  dangerous  admission,  this,  for  a  "  Trinitarian." 


DR.   HUNTINGTON   ON   THE   TRINITY.  13 

of  the  plural,)  as  a  general  rule,  make  mention  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  that  in  the  sense  of  a  person.  But 
what  is  the  fact?  In  the  twenty-one  Epistles  and 
the  Apocalypse  there  occur  —  including  the  opening 
with  the  closing  —  some  forty  benedictions.  Out  of 
these  forty,  more  or  less,  there  is  only  one  in  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  so  much  as  mentioned.  In  all  the  rest, 
it  is  either  Christ  alone  that  is  referred  to,  as,  "  The 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be  with  you ; "  or  God 
with  Christ,  as,  "  Grace  unto  you,  and  peace,  from 
God  our  Father  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  We  can 
hardly  conceive  of  a  stronger  proof  of  the  truth  of  our 
position,  that  the  modern  Trinitarian  doctrine  is  not 
the  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament,  than  precisely  this 
fact.  If  the  Apostles  had  had  the  Trinity  in  their 
minds,  how  could  they  have  so  ignored  it  ?  If  Dr. 
Huntington  was  not  aware  of  this  fact,  he  was  not 
qualified  to  discuss  this  subject.  If  he  was  aware  of 
it,  and  still  used  the  vague  plural,  then  "  how  desper- 
ate are  the  shifts  of  a  determined  theory  " ! 

One  case,  however,  there  is,  out  of  all  these  benedic- 
tions, in  which  the  Holy  Ghost  is  joined  to  the  names 
of  God  and  Christ.  It  is  that  referred  to  by  Dr.  Hun- 
tington, of  2  Cor.  xiii.  14, "  The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  the  love  of  God,  and  the  communion  *  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  with  you  all ! "  On  this  the  preacher  thus 
comments:  "Apart  from  some  preconceived  purpose, 
who  would  ever  suppose  there  was  a  sudden  lapse  or 
deviation  from  the  personal  to  the  impersonal  style,  on 
getting  half  or  two  thirds  through  that  worshipful  and 

*  *H  Koivavia,  communication,  or  participation  in  common. 


14  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

pre-eminent  blessing  ?  "  To  which  we  reply,  that  with- 
out some  preconceived  purpose,  no  one  surely  would 
dream  of  maintaining,  that  because  Jesus  Christ  whose 
favor,  and  God  whose  love,  the  Apostle  invokes  for  his 
Corinthians,  are  persons,  therefore  the  Holy  Spirit, 
which  he  prays  may  be  communicated  to  them,  is  per- 
sonal also.  "  When,"  says  Neander,  "  a  man  intrenches 
himself  in  some  particular  dogmatic  interest,  and  makes 
that  his  central  position,  he  can  easily  explain  every- 
thing in  conformity  with  his  own  views,  and  find  every- 
where a  reflection  of  himself."  For  our  own  part,  so 
different  is  the  look  of  this  passage  to  us,  so  decided  its 
leaning  in  the  opposite  direction,  that,  if  we  were  search- 
ing for  Scriptural  arguments  against  the  distinct  person- 
ality of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  separate  from  that  of  God 
and  of  Christ,  this  would  be  one  of  our  proof-texts. 
Three  names  are  named.  To  the  first  two,  personal 
attributes  —  favor  and  love  —  are  ascribed.  The  third 
is  distinguished  from  the  other  two,  in  that  no  such  at- 
tributes are  connected  with  it,  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  spoken  of  as  something  diffusive  and  extended,  — 
a  quality,  an  influence,  not  a  person  in  any  legitimate 
sense  of  the  word. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  considering  the  length  of 
this  sermon,  which  occupies  more  than  sixty  pages  of  a 
closely  printed,  middle-sized  volume,  we  have  already 
exhausted  the  author's  Scriptural  argument  in  defence 
of  the  Tripersonality.  The  Deity  of  Christ  is  a  sepa- 
rate question ;  we  speak  of  that  portion  of  the  argument 
only  which  bears  directly  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 
Divested  of  the  prodigal  trail  of  nebulous  matter  which 
accompanies  it,  the  solid  argument  —  the  comet's  nu- 


DR.  HUNTINGTON   ON   THE   TRINITY.  15 

cleus  —  amounts  to  this :  that  when  Jesus  ordained  his 
disciples  to  baptize  the  nations  into  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  meant  to  assert  (since  he  did 
not  deny)  the  co-equality  of  these  three,  consequently, 
the  tripersonality  of  the  Godhead ;  —  further,  that  the 
Father  and  the  Son  being  persons,  it  follows  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  must  be  personal  also,  and  a  person  dis- 
tinct from  the  other  two ;  —  and  lastly,  that  Christ  per- 
sonifies the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  John  xiv., 
xv.,  and  xvi.  This  is  all ;  this  is  the  proof  that  Triper- 
sonality is  the  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament. 

Perhaps  we  ought  not  to  quarrel  with  the  inadequacy 
of  the  reasoning,  were  it  only  candid.  Dr.  Huntington 
has  made  the  most  of  his  material :  the  fault  is  in  the 
problem,  not  in  him.  The  problem  of  proving  that 
doctrine  from  the  Bible  is  a  desperate  one,  suggesting 
"  desperate  shifts  "  in  those  who  undertake  its  solution. 
These  shifts  are  nothing  new.  The  interpolation  of 
1  John  v.  7  —  a  memorable  circumstance  in  this  con- 
nection —  proves  plainly  enough  what  the  old  theology 
sought  in  the  Bible  and  failed  to  find  there.  The  in- 
terpolation is  a  signal  confession  of  that  failure,  a  stand- 
ing witness  to  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  Tripersonal- 
ity is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible.  By  no  desperate 
shifts,  by  no  ecclesiastical  cross-questioning,  by  no  exe- 
getical  torture,  can  the  Bible  be  made  to  confess  the 
dogma  of  the  Athanasian  God.  It  is  not  in  the  Old 
Testament,  it  is  not  in  the  New.  Those  who  receive 
it  do  so  on  other  authority  than  that  of  the  sacred 
canon.  Whatever  the  Church  may  have  been  in  time 
past,  whatever  it  may  be  in  this  present,  it  is  certain 
that  the  Bible  is  not  —  in  the  sense  we  are  discussing 


16  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

—  Trinitarian.  For  those  with  whom  the  Bible  is,  in 
matters  of  theology,  the  supreme  court  of  last  appeal, 
a  candid  examination  of  the  Scripture  will  settle  the 
question  of  the  binding  authority  as  an  article  of  faith, 
if  not  of  the  abstract  truth,  of  the  doctrine. 

A  word  or  two  further  on  some  points  of  this  dis- 
course. 

Dr.  Huntington  insists,  with  reiterated  emphasis,  on 
the  fact  of  the  wide,  and,  as  he  supposes,  almost  univer- 
sal reception  of  this  doctrine.  We  do  not  deny,  that, 
taking  into  view  the  entire  period  of  the  Christian 
Church,  a  great  majority  of  Christians  have  been  nom- 
inal receivers  of  the  "  Trinitarian  "  creed ;  that  is,  have 
belonged  to  churches  in  which  the  Tripersonality  was 
an  article  of  faith,  and  have  seemingly  acquiesced  in  the 
symbol.  How  many  of  this  vast  multitude  have  thought 
sufficiently  about  it  to  be  called  believers  in  any  proper 
sense,  and,  of  those  few  who  have  really  exercised  their 
minds  upon  it,  how  many  have  heartily  embraced  it,  we 
can  never  know.  The  preacher  pleases  himself  with  a 
fancy  sketch  of  worshipping  assemblies  the  Christian 
world  over,  who,  with  whatsoever  differences  of  circum- 
stance and  place,  shall  unite  in  ascriptions  of  praise  to 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  —  ascriptions, 
by  the  way,  in  which  most  Unitarians  would  heartily 
join.  And  hence  he  would  have  us  infer  that  all  these 
believe  in  the  Tripersonality ;  for  he  adds  as  it  were  a 
definition  of  the  Three,  "the  one  ever-living  and  al- 
mighty God  of  all  the  earth."  We  fancy  that  scarcely 
one  in  the  thousand  of  all  these  worshippers  ever  trou- 
bles his  brain  with  the  dogma  of  Tripersonality.  They 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  17 

who  do  so  most  likely  dismiss  it  presently,  as  something 
which  the  doctors  must  settle  for  themselves,  but  which 
they  for  their  part  can  make  nothing  of.  If  this  be 
claimed  as  faith  in  the  Athanasian  Trinity,  we  cheer- 
fully concede  whatever  of  corroboration  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal dogma  may  draw  from  that  fact.  "  It  is  this  truth," 
says  the  preacher,  "which  has  kept  its  vigils  by  the 
weary  processions  of  sufferers,  and  consoled  them."  We 
cannot  of  course  disprove  the  truth  of  this  assertion  re- 
garding a  matter  of  which  Omniscience  alone  can  know. 
But  we  vainly  attempt  to  figure  to  ourselves  the  hus- 
band bereft  of  the  wife  of  his  youth,  the  mother  at  the 
grave  of  her  first-born,  the  orphaned  child,  turning  for 
support  and  consolation,  not  to  the  blessed  declarations 
of  Him  who  proclaimed  himself  the  "  Resurrection  and 
the  Life,"  —  "  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  man- 
sions," not  to  the  lofty  strain  of  St.  Paul,  "  For  we  know 
that  if  our  earthly  tabernacle-house  were  dissolved," 
&c.;  but  —  for  this  is  the  Trinity  which  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton  advocates  —  to  the  comfortable  words  of  the  "Atha- 
nasian" Creed:  "Whoever  will  be  saved,  before  all 
things  it  is  necessary  that  he  hold  the  Catholic  faith. 
Which  faith  except  every  one  do  keep  whole  and  unde- 
filed,  without  doubt  he  shall  perish  everlastingly.  And 
the  Catholic  faith  is,  that  we  worship  one  God  in  Trin- 
ity and  Trinity  in  Unity,  neither  confounding  the  Per- 
sons nor  dividing  the  Substance,"  &c., —  propositions 
which,  whether  they  be  true  or  false,  would  seem  but 
imperfectly  suited  to  such  straits.  The  same  consola- 
tions are  not  available  for  all.  For  one  Christian  mourn- 
er who  is  comforted  by  the  thought  of  the  Trinity,  there 
are  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  who  seek  con- 
2 


18  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON    THE   TRINITY. 

solation  in  prayers  to  the  Virgin,  and  do  abundantly 
find  it.  But  Mariolatry,  though  not  without  its  aes- 
thetic charm,  would  poorly  comfort  us  whose  "  conso- 
lation aboundeth  by  Christ." 

We  are  not  insensible  to  the  argument  from  num- 
bers. Theoretically,  we  allow  it  some  considerable 
weight  as  a  general  rule  of  presumptive  evidence.  But 
practically,  in  any  given  case,  we  have  to  modify  it  by 
other  considerations.  Had  we  lived  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  been  of  a  critical,  inquiring  mind,  we 
should  probably  have  had  this  problem  presented  to 
us,  —  whether  to  receive  or  reject  the  Church  doctrine 
of  Transubstantiation.  We  should  have  found  the  ar- 
gument from  numbers  and  authority  almost  irresistible. 
The  doctrine  clearly  prefigured  in  the  Fathers.  From 
the  eighth  century  on,  the  leading  authorities  all  on  that 
side.  And  had  we  then  had  access  to  the  Scriptures 
we  should  there  have  found  —  what  ?  No  doubtful 
text,  but  explicit  declarations  of  our  Lord,  necessi- 
tating, if  the  doctrine  were  denied,  what  might  seem  to 
be  desperate  shifts  of  figurative  interpretation  in  order 
to  escape  the  binding  conclusion  of  the  sacramental 
metabole.  And  yet  we  should  then  most  likely,  as  now, 
have  found  in  our  own  consciousness  a  countervailing 
force  which  would  not  have  suffered  us  to  be  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  that  particular. 

We  respect  Catholicity,  but  when  it  is  urged  as  a 
ground  of  belief,  we  recall  what  was  said  by  a  Cata- 
lonian  bishop  of  the  eighth  century  in  answer  to  Al- 
cuin,  who  attempted  to  refute  him  by  appealing  to  the 
general  consent  of  the  Church.  "  I  believe  in  a  Catho- 
lic Church,"  said  Felix,  "founded  by  Christ  and  dif- 


DR.   HTJNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY.  19 

fused  through  the  world,  but  the  Church  is  sometimes 
vested  in  a  few  individuals."  Aliquando  vero  ecclesia 
in  exiguis  est. 

But  what  is  the  extent  of  Catholicity  which  after  all 
can  be  fairly  claimed  for  the  doctrine  in  question  ?  Dr. 
Huntington,  confounding  ecclesiastical  determinations 
which  date  from  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century 
with  the  simple  baptismal  confession  of  preceding  ages, 
speaks  as  if  the  doctrine  of  three  co-equal  persons  in 
the  Godhead  had  been  from  the  first  the  creed  of  Chris- 
tendom. *  His  language  is,  "a  tenet  so  emphatically 
and  gladly  received  in  all  the  ages  and  regions  of  Chris- 
tendom as  almost  literally  to  meet  the  terms  of  the  test 
of  Vincentius,  — l  Believed  always,  everywhere,  and 
by  all.' "  Suppose  we  strike  out  from  the  term  of  ages 
comprised  in  this  assertion  three  centuries,  or  three  and 
a  half,  to  begin  with.  The  truth  of  history  demands 
this  discount,  if  we  speak  of  a  common  belief  in  the 
co-equality  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  If  the 
general  reception  of  the  "Athanasian"  Creed  be  the 
test,  some  centuries  more  must  be  added  to  the  three. 
But  waiving  that,  and  taking  for  our  limit  the  authori- 

*  If  Dr.  Huntington  means  to  be  understood  as  placing  the 
confession  of  belief  in  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  which, 
though  not  demonstrably  of  Apostolic  institution,  is  doubtless 
very  ancient,  in  the  same  category  with  the  doctrine  of  a  three- 
person  God,  and  as  applying  the  assertion  of  belief  in  the  Trin- 
ity to  that  confession,  we  shall  not  differ  with  him  regarding 
the  antiquity  and  universality  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine.  But 
neither,  in  that  case,  can  we  understand  the  aim  of  his  advocacy. 
If  he  allows  the  name  of  Trinitarian  to  all  who  believe  in  Father, 
Son,  and  Spirit,  against  whom  is  he  contending  ?  Whom  does 
that  definition  exclude  ? 


20  DK.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

zation  *  of  the  doctrine  of  Con  substantiality  as  applied 
both  to  Son  and  Spirit,  we  have  the  year  380  f  as  the 
true  date  of  the  institution  of  the  Trinitarian  faith, 
which  then  became  the  established  and  self-styled 
"  Catholic,"  although  by  no  means  the  universal,  creed 
of  Christendom.  The  Council  of  Nicasa,  which  half  a 
century  earlier  affirmed  the  consubstantiality  of  the 
Son,  had  left  undetermined  the  nature  of  the  Spirit; 
and  Gregory  Nazianzen,  on  the  very  eve  of  the  final 
settlement,  says :  "  Some  of  our  theologians  consider 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  be  a  certain  mode  of  the  Divine 
agency,  others  a  creature  of  God,  others  God  himself. 
Others  say  they  do  not  know  which  of  the  two  opinions 
they  ought  to  adopt  out  of  reverence  for  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  which  have  not  clearly  explained  this 
point."  Hilary  of  Poicters,  one  of  the  foremost  men 
of  that  century,  and  second  to  none  in  spiritual  au- 
thority, though  leaning  strongly  to  Homoousian  views, 
"held  it  best  to  remain  fast  by  the  simple  Scripture 
doctrine  concerning  the  Holy  Spirit,  which,  as  it 
seemed  to  him,  furnished  no  materials  for  exact  logi- 


*  The  authorization  was  long  anterior  to  the  general  recep- 
tion, if,  indeed,  we  can  speak  of  general  reception  at  all  in  this 
connection. 

t  Date  of  the  Theodosian  edict,  followed,  in  381,  by  the  Coun- 
cil of  Constantinople,  where  the  ecclesiastical  sanction  was  added 
to  the  imperial.  The  character  and  conduct  of  this  Council 
would  be  sufficient  of  themselves  to  cast  suspicion  on  the  doc- 
trine it  affirmed.  Gregory  Nazianzen,  himself  a  Trinitarian, 
condemns  and  repudiates  it.  It  passes  for  one  of  the  universal 
Councils,  but  has  no  more  title  to  that  designation  than  any  local 
and  ex  parte  synod. 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  21 

cal  definitions  of  this  doctrine."  "  Should  one  ask 
us,"  he  says,  "  what  is  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  we  knew 
of  nothing  further  to  reply  than  that  he  exists  by  and 
from  Him  by  whom  and  from  whom  are  all  things,  — 
that  he  is  the  spirit  of  God,  but  also  God's  gift  to  be- 
lievers,—  and  this  answer  displeased  him,  then  might 
the  Apostles  and  Prophets  also  displease  him  ;  for 
they  also  affirm  only  this  of  him  [the  Spirit],  that  he 
exists."  * 

Until  the  accession  of  Theodosius,  "the  first  of  the 
Emperors  baptized  in  the  true  faith  of  the  Trinity," 
A.  D.  380,  it  was,  humanly  speaking,  an  "  even 
chance"  whether  Christendom  would  be  Trinitarian 
or  Evangelical  in  its  pneumatology.  Nay,  even  the 
Christology,  even  the  consubstantiality  of  the  Son, 
affirmed  by  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  was  still  debated 
with  incalculable  issue.  For  fifty  years  the  tongue  of 
the  balance  wagged  uncertain  ;  now  this  scale  dipped, 
now  that.  The  imperial  soldier  threw  his  sword  into 
the  Homoousian,  and  —  the  Catholic  Church  was  born. 

"  It  is  our  pleasure  that  all  the  nations  which  are 
governed  by  our  clemency  and  moderation  should  stead- 
fastly adhere  to  the  religion  which  was  taught  by  St. 
Peter  [!]  to  the  Romans According  to  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  Apostles  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel, 
let  us  believe  the  sole  Deity  of  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost,  under  an  equal  majesty  and  a 
pious  Trinity.  We  authorize  the  followers  of  this  doc- 
trine to  assume  the  title  of  Catholic  Christians ;  and  as 
we  judge  that  all  others  are  extravagant  madmen,  we 
brand  them  with  the  impious  name  of  Heretics;  and 
declare  that  their  conventicles  shall  no  longer  usurp  the 

*  Quoted  from  Neander. 


22  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITT. 

respectable  appellation  of  churches.  Besides  the  con- 
demnation of  Divine  justice,  they  must  expect  to  suffer 
the  severe  penalties  which  our  authority,  guided  by 
heavenly  wisdom,  shall  think  proper  to  inflict  upon 
them." 

The  penalties  followed  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks. 
A  military  inquisition  was  established,  the  clergy  who 
refused  to  accept  the  creed  thus  ordained  were  expelled 
from  their  churches,  and  a  fine,  equivalent  to  two  thou- 
sand dollars,  was  imposed  on  every  one  who  should 
"  dare  to  confer,  or  receive,  or  promote  an  heretical 
ordination." 

Christians  are  wont  to  charge  the  Moslem  with 
having  established  his  religion  by  force.  If  ever  re- 
ligion in  this  world  was  established  by  force,  it  was 
the  Trinitarian  faith.  The  Roman  fiat  was  the  judge 
that  ended  the  strife  where  Greek  wit  and  reason 
failed.  Providentially,  as  we  can  see,  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  human  race  for  whom  it  furnished,  if  not  "  a 
guide  to  everlasting  life,"  a  substantial  mystery  for  the 
exercise  of  awe  and  wonder,  through  the  "  gloomy 
vale "  of  the  Middle  Age.  Providentially,  but  not 
therefore  decisive  of  the  absolute  truth. 

Gibbon  seems  to  insinuate  that  the  action  or  decision 
of  Theodosius  was  the  product  of  external  and  acci- 
dental motives.  "  Once  indeed  he  expressed  a  faint  in- 
clination to  converse  with  the  eloquent  and  learned 
Eunomius,  who  lived  in  retirement  at  a  small  distance 
from  Constantinople.  But  the  dangerous  interview  was 
prevented  by  the  prayers  of  the  Empress  Flaccilla, 
who  trembled  for  the  salvation  of  her  husband ;  and  the 
mind  of  Theodosius  was  confirmed  by  an  argument 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRIXITT.  23 

adapted  to  the  rudest  capacity."  The  argument  was 
the  well-known  trick  of  the  Bishop  of  Iconium.  The 
Emperor  and  his  son  were  seated  on  a  throne.  The 
wily  ecclesiastic  bowed  with  profound  obeisance  to  the 
father,  but  treated  the  young  prince  with  the  easy 
familiarity  of  an  equal.  The  Emperor  ordered  his 
arrest  for  this  insult,  and  received  the  premeditated 
answer :  "  Thus,  O  Emperor,  will  the  King  of  heaven 
punish  those  who  pretend  to  honor  the  Father,  and  re- 
fuse to  honor  equally  the  Divine  Son." 

It  was  far  toward  the  close  of  the  fourth  century, 
then,  that  the  dogma  of  three  co-equal  persons  in  the 
Godhead  became  the  established  creed  of  Christendom. 
Near  four  centuries,  and  those  the  first  four,  —  a  grave 
deduction  from  the  "  everywhere  and  always "  of  the 
preacher's  assertion !  Graver  than  at  first  it  might 
seem.  The  numerical  amount  of  the  testimony  of  those 
ages  is  no  true  measure  of  their  testimonial  importance. 
And  when  we  say  this,  we  are  willing  to  abandon  the 
fourth  century  altogether,  as  being  an  era  of  forced  con- 
clusions on  both  sides.  Theology  was  vitiated  from 
the  moment  the  secular  power  assumed  its  control. 
It  had  ceased  to  develop  itself  freely,  .and  the  visible 
Church  was  no  longer  a  true  witness  of  the  faith.  We 
make  no  account  of  Arianism  in  our  judgment  of  this 
matter.  Arianism  was  not  beautiful,  and  the  Arians 
did  many  unhandsome  things.  But  certainly  the  Triuni- 
tarian  theology  had  far  less  reason  to  boast  of  its  final 
success  than  Arianism  of  its  temporary  triumphs.  The 
character  of  the  councils  that  fashioned  it,  in  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries,  was  mostly  such  as  to  justify  the 
strong  language  of  Scaliger :  "  Eorum  concilia  fuerunt 


24  DR.   HUNTINGTON   ON   THE   TRINITY. 

merae  conspirationes," —  "  Their  councils  were  mere  con- 
spiracies." Socrates,  a  Trinitarian,  pronounced  that  of 
Nicaea  "  a  fight  in  the  dark."  Gregory,  another,  had 
probably  that  of  Constantinople  in  his  mind  when  he 
said  of  synods,  "There  is  contention,  there  is  strife, 
there  the  latent  wickedness  of  cruel  men  is  collected 
together."  The  first  Council  at  Ephesus  was  a  mixed 
mob  of  "Orthodox"  ecclesiastics  and  sailors,  bent  on 
violence,  and  headed  by  the  infamous  and  furious 
Cyril.  The  second  at  Ephesus,  where  the  "fathers" 
were  compelled  by  military  force  to  sign  blank  papers, 
and  where  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria  beat  and  killed 
the  Bishop  of  Constantinople,  is  known  to  history  as 
the  "  Robbers'  Council."  *  Really,  when  in  the  retro- 
spect of  history  we  assist  at  the  rearing  of  the  sin- 
polluted  structure  of  the  Trinitarian  Catholic  faith, 
concerning  which  a  contemporary  Trinitarian  (Gregory 
again)  complained  that  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was 
converted  by  discord  into  the  image  of  chaos,  of  a  noc- 
turnal tempest,  of  hell  itself,"  —  and  which  caused  a 
contemporary  pagan  historian  to  say  that  "  the  enmity 
of  Christians  toward  each  other  surpassed  the  fury  of 
savage  beasts  against  man,"  —  we  not  only  conceive  a 
hearty  disgust  to  ecclesiastical  Trinitarianism,  but  find 
even  more  to  respect  in  the  prominent  Paganism  than 

*  For  the  honor  of  humanity  it  ought  to  be  stated  that  the  acts 
of  this  Council  were  annulled,  and  its  authority  disallowed,  by 
that  of  Chalcedon,  451.  The  latter  is  an  honorable  exception  to 
the  general  statement  above,  —  a  true  (Ecumenical  Council.  The 
dicision  of  that  Council  respecting  the  nature  of  Christ  is  still 
the  highest  authority  in  the  Christian  Church  on  that  subject, 
the  true  "Orthodox"  doctrine  concerning  Christ. 


DR.   HTJNTINGTON   ON   THE   TRINITY.  25 

in  most  of  the  prominent  Christianity  of  that  age ;  and 
so  far  from  wondering  that  the  Emperor  Julian  aban- 
doned the  faith  in  which  he  was  educated,  our  wonder 
is  rather  that  his  example  was  not  more  extensively 
followed.  So  far  as  we  can  judge  at  this  distance  of 
time,  the  balance  of  the  virtues  was  not  on  the  Chris- 
tian side.  Baron  Bunsen,  who  is  no  Unitarian,  —  who 
justly  condemns  the  Unitarianism  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury as  "  modern  Deism  asking  Christ  for  a  model,"  — 
after  stating  "  for  the  honor  of  truth "  that  the  Trini- 
tarian decision  was  a  "  logical  contradiction,"  thus  char- 
acterizes the  ecclesiastical  formation  of  that  doctrine: 
"  The  Church  history  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth 
centuries  resolves  itself  into  two  tragedies.  In  the 
fourth  century  one  party  among  the  clergy  .appeared 
to  negative  the  problem,  and  the  other  solved  it  illogi- 
cally  and  unhistorically.  The  latter  view  having  tri- 
umphed by  a  persecuting  and  often  unscrupulous  ma- 
jority, the  victorious  hierarchical  party  canonized,  in 
the  course  of  the  two  next  blood-stained  centuries,  the 
confession  of  its  intellectual  bankruptcy  into  a  confes- 
sion of  faith,  and  made  submission  to  it  the  condition 
of  churchmanship  and  the  badge  of  eternal  salvation." 

Taking,  then,  the  first  three  centuries  only,  which  are 
not  Trinitarian  in  the  sense  of  this  discourse,  as  wit- 
nesses of  the  truth  of  Christianity  on  this  subject,  we 
say  that  the  authority  of  that  testimony  far  exceeds 
its  numerical  amount.  Those  centuries  outweigh  in 
importance  all  the  centuries  that  followed  to  the  time 
of  the  Reformation,  —  perhaps  we  may  add,  all  the 
centuries  since.  Not  merely  because  they  were  chrono- 
logically nearer  to  the  source  of  truth,  but  because  in 


26  DR.  HUNTINGTON   ON   THE   TRINITY. 

them  theology  developed  itself  freely  without  inter- 
ference of  the  secular  power,  and  without  the  bias  of 
ecclesiastical  prestige.  When  once  the  Catholic  Church 
was  established,  and  became  supreme  authority  in  mat- 
ters of  faith,  there  was  forthwith  an  end  to  all  inde- 
pendent judgment,  and  to  all  free  inquiry  on  points 
already  decided  by  that  Church.  Weak  men  were 
deterred  by  personal  fear,  and  good  men  were  pre- 
vented by  scruples  of  conscience,  from  questioning  her 
decisions.  The  theologians  of  the  Middle  Age,  wrise 
and  profound  and  holy  as  many  of  them  were,  are 
not  independent  witnesses  on  this  point.*  We  cannot 
admit  their  testimony  as  to  the  previous  question,  but 
only  as  to  the  rationale  of  the  "  mystery."  They  re- 
ceived the  doctrines  which  the  Church  delivered,  and 
interpreted  them  and  rationalized  them  as  well  as  they 
could  within  the  limits  of  the  Church  confession.  And 
some  of  them  —  indeed  all  the  foremost  of  them,  An- 
selm,  Abelard,  Hugo  a  St.  Victoire,  Alexander  Hales, 
Albertus  Magnus,  Raymond  Lull,  Thomas  Aquinas  — 
explained  the  Trinity  in  such  a  way  —  they  distilled 
and  refined  it  to  such  a  degree  —  as  to  leave  very 
little  that  modern  Orthodoxy  would  be  willing  to  ac- 
cept as  satisfactory  statement.  They  retained  the  let- 
ter indeed,  but  the  hard,  dogmatic  element  of  it  was 
disengaged  in  their  alembic,  and  instead  thereof  a 
something  was  evolved,  a  philosophic  residuum  was 
deposited,  as  harmless  as  it  was  specious,  and  as  un- 
evangelical  as  it  was  profound,  —  a  fancy  Trinity  which 

*  Neither,  for  the  same  reason,  was  St.  Augustine,  the  last 
writer  of  importance  on  this  subject  before  the  fall  of  the  Western 
Empire. 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  27 

none  would  dispute  and  few  would  understand,  and  in 
which  still  fewer  would  recognize  the  Scriptural  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  In  this  they  followed  the  lead 
of  St.  Augustine,  their  great  predecessor,  who  in  his 
treatise  De  Trinitate,  after  threading  his  labyrinthine 
way  through  fourteen  books  of  exquisite  subtilties  in 
search  of  a  proposition  which  shall  satisfy  reason,  and 
justify  dogma,  and  reconcile  philosophy,  which  he  loved 
so  well,  with  religion  which  he  loved  more,  arrives,  in 
the  fifteenth,  at  this  conclusion,  that  the  Divine  Trinity 
consists  in  Wisdom,  Self-consciousness,  and  Self-love.* 
Infinite  Wisdom  is  the  Father,  his  Self-consciousness 
the  Son,  his  Self-love  the  Holy  Spirit.  God,  the  abso- 
lute Being  in  the  act  of  self-consciousness  becomes  two, 
—  Being  and  Knowing.  In  the  love  with  which  he 
perpetually  seeks  himself — i.  e.  wills  the  good  —  he 
becomes  three.  But  this  love  is  also  the  union  of  the 
first  and  second ;  in  it  the  three  are  one.  Thanks  to 
the  glorious  Father  for  suggesting  a  transcendental 
solution,  which,  though  it  does  not  touch  the  evan- 
gelical right  of  the  dogma,  reveals  in  it  or  imports  into 
it  a  philosophic  idea. 

In  the  swelling  catalogue  which  Dr.  Huntington  re- 
cites, of  names  addicted  to  the  Trinitarian  creed,  f  we 
find  but  one  writer  prior  to  the  fifth  century.  And  he 
is  the  only  real  authority  in  this  matter,  of  those  here 
named,  because  the  only  independent  witness.  That 
writer  is  Athanasius,  the  "pillar  and  ground"  of  the 
doctrine.  A  great  and  venerable  name !  We  regard 

*  "  Trinitas  sapientia  scilicet,  et  notitia  sui  et  dilectio  sui." 
t  See  foot-note  to  page  361. 


ZO  DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY. 

the  man  with  immense  admiration.  So  far  as  the  au- 
thority of  an  individual  can  avail  in  such  matters,  that 
of  Athanasius  must  be  allowed.  Still  it  is  but  a  fallible 
individual  that  testifies,  with  no  better  means  of  know- 
ing than  ourselves.  The  rest  of  Dr  Huntington's  vouch- 
ers are  representatives  of  foregone  conclusions,  heirs  to 
a  dogma  not  to  be  questioned,  but  defended  and  ex- 
plained, —  most  of  them  Churchmen  sacramented  to  the 
service  of  ecclesiastical  establishments  based  on  the  Tri- 
personality.  Some  of  them  never  thoroughly  investi- 
gated it;  others,  like  Bishop  Taylor,  rather  tolerated 
than  embraced  it.  We  press  this  imposing  cloud  of 
witnesses,  and  it  yields  but  one  drop,  after  all,  of  valid 
testimony,  —  the  single  Athanasius.  Names  more  to 
the  purpose  might  have  been  found.  One  secular  phi- 
losopher, like  Leibnitz  or  Lessing,  who  might  both  have 
been  cited  in  this  connection,  would  outweigh,  in  point 
of  independent  testimony,  the  whole  brood  of  ecclesias- 
tics. Protestantism,  it  is  true,  like  Romanism,  has  been 
mostly  "  Trinitarian."  The  schism  was  not  a  dogmatic 
one;*  the  Church  split  on  right  and  discipline,  not  on 
questions  of  theology ;  and  where  ordinance  and  polity 
were  not  concerned,  the  old  authority  still  pressed.  But 
Protestantism,  since  the  sixteenth  century,  has  been 
growing  continually  less  Trinitarian,  and  exhibits  al- 
ready a  powerful  array  of  genius  and  learning  opposed 
to  the  Athanasian  faith.f 

*  "  It  must  strike  every  one  as  strange,"  says  Baur,  in  his  His- 
tory of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  "  that,  in  the  period  beginning 
with  the  Reformation,  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  was  made  so  little 
the  subject  of  independent  theological  investigation."  —  Einleitung, 
p.  106. 

t  A  faith  which  lacks  the  testimony  of  Milton,  Newton,  Locke, 


DR.   HUNTINGDON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  29 

We  have  thus  exposed  the  fallacy  of  Dr.  Huntington's 
appeal  to  numbers,  by  showing  that,  for  want  of  the  im- 
portant and  decisive  testimony  of  the  first  three  centu- 
ries, the  rest  is  vitiated  and  essentially  neutralized.  The 
first  three  centuries  were  not  Trinitarian  in  the  sense  of 
this  discourse.  We  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  no  form 
or  kind  of  Trimtarianism  appears  in  them.  In  the  Al- 
exandrian school,  through  the  influence  and  with  partial 
adoption  of  Pagan,  that  is  of  Platonic  ideas,  there  de- 
veloped itself  in  opposition  to,  or  parallel  with,  the  Mo- 
narchianism  which  prevailed  in  the  West,  a  species  of 
Trinity,  which,  so  far,  however,  from  answering  to  the 
modern  Trinitarian  dogma  of  the  co-equality  of  three 
persons  in  the  Godhead,  is  known  as  the  system  of  "  Sub- 
ordination," maintaining  as  it  did,  with  rigorous  discrim- 
ination, the  inferiority  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  and  that 
of  the  Spirit  to  the  Son.  Origen,  the  chief  representa- 
tive of  this  "  Subordination  System  "  in  the  East,  proves 


to  say  nothing  of  the  hosts  of  minor  and  later  celebrities  which 
might  be  named,  will  do  wisely  to  say  little  of  its  allies  this  side 
of  the  Keformation,  and  had  better  confine  its  appeal  to  ante-Prot- 
estant times.  Dr.  Huntington  affirms  that  "  the  ascendant  school 
of  philosophical  thought  to-day  is  unequivocally  Trinitarian."  The 
grave  audacity  of  this  statement  is  too  comical  for  serious  discus- 
sion. In  any  other  connection  we  could  view  it  only  as  a  piece  of 
pleasantry.  A  certain  Pope  was  anxious  to  carry  a  point  in  his 
Council  of  State.  The  ballot  was  thrown,  the  vote  was  decidedly 
adverse.  "Gentlemen,"  said  his  Holiness,  "it  is  very  desirable 
that  the  vote  for  this  project  should  be  unanimous,"  —  and,  taking 
his  skull-cap  from  his  head,  and  covering  with  it  the  negatives,  "  It 
is  unanimous." 

Trinitarian  indeed !    We  wish  we  could  say  it  was  even  Chris- 
tian. 


30  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY. 

the  subjection  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  and  his  depend- 
ence on  the  Father,  from  the  idea  of  God  as  the  one 
absolute  principle.  "  So  surely  as  the  only  uncreated 
First  Cause  is  above  all  that  he  has  made,  —  the  prin- 
ciple of  Truth  above  the  truth,  the  principle  of  Light 
above  the  Light,  the  Original  above  the  image,  —  so 
surely  the  Son  can  be  conceived  only  as  inferior  to  the 
Father."  *  "  The  all-connecting  God  and  Father  acts 
upon  each  individual  thing,  imparting  to  each,  as  abso- 
lute Being,  out  of  his  own,  their  individual  being.  Less 
than  the  Father  is  the  Son,  whose  action  extends  only 
to  rational  beings ;  still  less  than  the  Son  is  the  Holy 
Spirit,  whose  action  is  confined  to  the  saints."  f 

The  subordination  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  and  the 
Spirit  to  the  Son,  is  expressed  with  equal  distinctness 
by  Tertullian,  who,  together  with  Cyprian  and  Nova- 
tian,  represented  this  system  in  the  West.  Tertullian, 
early  in  the  third  century,  was  the  first  who  made  use 
in  this  connection  of  the  word  Trinitas,  translating  and 
enlarging  the  Greek  Tpids.  "  The  Church,"  he  says? 
"  is  properly  and  principally  that  Holy  Spirit  itself,  in 
which  is  a  trinity  of  one  divinity."  }  And  this  per- 
haps is  the  nearest  approach  in  the  way  of  phraseology 
to  the  later  Triunitarian  idea,  although  the  word  Divin- 
ity has  not  precisely  the  import  here  which  our  modern 
associations  connect  with  it.  Tertullian  does  not  mean 
to  say  that  the  Church  is  level  with  God,  but  that,  by 

*  Baur,  Lehre  von  der  DreieinigJceit,  &c.,  Vol.  I.  p.  197. 

t  Ibid. 

J  "  Nam  et  ecclesia  proprie  et  principaliter  ipse  est  Spiritus,  in 
quo  est  trinitas  unius  divinitatis."  Hagenbach,  Lehrbuchder 
Dogmengeschichte,  Dritte  Auflage,  pp.  98,  99. 


DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  31 

the  Holy  Spirit  which  is  in  it,  it  is  made,  together  with 
Christ,  partaker  of  the  Divine  nature.  It  appears, 
however,  that  even  this  imperfect  development  of  the 
Trinitarian  doctrine  encountered  then,  as  the  finished 
dogma  has  since,  the  charge  of  tritheism,  and  that  the 
majority  of  Christians  opposed  it  on  that  ground.  We 
find  Tertullian  complaining  that  the  greater  portion 
of  believers  in  his  day  were  afraid  of  this  economical 
triplicity  (expavescunt  ad  ceconomiam).  "They  say 
that  we  preach  two  and  three  Gods,  while  they  wor- 
ship only  one."  *  This  Subordination  theory  formed 
the  transition  from  the  Unitarianism  f  of  the  first  and 
second  centuries  to  the  fully  developed  Trinitarianism 
of  the  fourth. 

If  Dr.  Huntington's  Scriptural  argument  is,  as  we 

*  We  must,  therefore,  demur  to  such  statements  as  that  of  Ne- 
ander,  that  the  economical  and  practical  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
constituted  from  the  first  the  fundamental  consciousness  of  the 
Catholic  Church,"  as  likely  to  mislead,  though  not  demonstrably 
false.  The  belief  in  one  God,  the  Father,  in  the  Son,  and  in  the 
Holy  Ghost,  was  the  general  confession  of  the  Church,  so  far  as 
we  know,  in  the  first  century.  And  this  is  all  that  can  be  af- 
firmed. There  was  no  idea  of  Trinity  here;  the  fact  of  the 
threeness  was  no  part  of  the  "  Catholic  consciousness;" — and 
when  the  attempt  was  made  to  define  this  confession,  to  empha- 
size the  numerical  element  in  it,  and  to  shape  it  into  a  speculative 
system,  the  "  Catholic  consciousness "  resisted  the  movement. 
Neander,  with  other  historians  of  the  Church,  confounds  some- 
times the  Catholic  consciousness  with  the  opinions  of  prominent 
individuals. 

t  Of  which  there  were  two  kinds,  Humanitarianism,  repre- 
sented by  the  Ebionites,  and  afterward  by  the  Artemonites,  and 
the  belief  in  the  supreme  deity  of  Christ,  whose  confessors  were 
known  by  the  name  of  Patripassians. 


32  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

have  shown,  preposterously  inadequate,  and  his  plea  of 
popularity  a  fallacy,  what  shall  we  say  of  his  meta- 
physical speculations  and  attempted  philosophic  illus- 
trations of  his  theme  ?  We  can  see  in  them  only  an 
unconscious  confession  of  "  intellectual  bankruptcy," 
and  a  melancholy  proof  of  mistaken  vocation.  We 
have  room  but  for  one  or  two  examples  in  this  kind. 

In  a  style  sufficiently  imposing,  and  reminding  one 
of  some  Gnostic  theogony,  he  thus  propounds  his  fun- 
damental theses :  "  In  the  transcendent,  removed,  and 
awful  depth  of  his  Absolute  Infinitude,  which  no  un- 
derstanding can  pierce,  the  Everlasting  and  Almighty 
God  lives  in  an  existence  of  which  our  only  possi- 
ble knowledge  is  gained  by  lights  thrown  back  from 
revelation."  Pausing  here  for  a  moment,  we  ask,  Is 
not  this  one  everlasting  and  true  God  of  whom  the 
preacher  speaks  the  same  with  him  whom  our  Lord 
named  Father,  and  whom  we  are  taught  to  call  our 
Father  in  Heaven  ?  This  we  had  supposed  to  be 
the  common  belief  of  Christians,  but  Dr.  Huntington 
preaches  another  Gospel.  "  Out  of  that  ineffable  and 
veiled  Godhead,  —  the  groundwork,  if  we  may  say 
so,  of  all  Divine  manifestation  or  theophany,  —  there 
emerge  to  us  in  revelation  the  three  whom  we  rightly 
call  persons,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  with  their 
several  individual  offices,  mutual  relations,  operations 
towards  men,  and  perfect  unity  together."  The  Father 
then  is  not  the  Everlasting  and  Almighty  God,  but  a 
second  term,  an  impersonation,  a  proceeding  from  God. 
Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  persons ;  the  Almighty  God 
is  not'  a  person,  but  an  impersonal  "  groundwork,"  from 
which  the  Father  emerges,  just  as  the  Hindoo  trinity 


DR.   HUNTINGTON   ON   T  IE    TRINITY.  S3 

has  a  Being  behind  it,  —  the  Brahma,  a  Brahm.  In 
effect,  we  have  here,  instead  of  a  Trinity,  a  Quaternity ; 
—  1.  the  Almighty  God ;  2.  the  Father ;  3.  the  Son  ; 
4.  the  Holy  Ghost.  But,  the  preacher  may  say,  the 
three  last-named  constitute  together  the  first.  Then 
why  not  put  it  so  ?  According  to  the  language  we 
have  cited,  it  is  the  one  that  makes  three,  instead  of  the 
three  making  one.  Why  talk  of  the  "  groundwork  " 
at  all,  especially  since  he  immediately  adds,  "  We  know 
of  no  priority  to  that  Threeness,  of  no  Deity  indepen- 
dent of  that  threefold  distinction."  Observe  the  con- 
tradiction ;  he  first  speaks  of  the  Almighty  God  as 
existing  behind  the  "  Threeness,"  —  the  groundwork 
thereof,  —  and  then  declares,  that  we  know  of  no  such 
Being ;  he  speaks  of  "  an  existence  of  which  our  only 
possible  knowledge  is  gained  by  lights  thrown  back  from 
revelation,"  and  then  denies  that  any  such  existence  is 
revealed,  or  is  even  conceivable.  "We  conceive  of 
God  always,  not  as  Absolute  Being,  but  as  in  relations, 
in  process,  in  act.  And  in  such  relations,  process,  act, 
we  behold  him  only  as  Three."  In  short,  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton  distinguishes  between  the  Father  and  the  absolute 
God,  and,  in  vindication  of  this  distinction,  obscurely 
suggests*  that  "  human  language  could  not  so  well  rep- 
resent these  infinite  realities  as  by  using  the  same  term 
*  Father '  sometimes  [!]  for  the  absolute  Godhead  and 
sometimes  for  that  relative  paternal  Person  in  the  God- 
head brought  to  view  only  when  the  Son  and  the  Spirit 
appear."  Unless  we  have  read  the  New  Testament 
our  life  long  in  vain,  the  term  "  Father  "  is  always  used 

*  Page  371,  near  the  bottom. 
3 


34  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

for  the  absolute  Godhead,  and  no  other  "  Father  "  and  no 
other  Godhead  is  recognized  or  intimated  from  Matthew 
to  Revelation.  St.  Paul  says,  "  To  us  there  is  but  one 
God,  the  Father,  of  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  in  him ; 
and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  are  all  things,  and 
we  by  him."  "  Howbeit,"  he  continues,  — •  one  could 
almost  fancy,  with  prophetic  allusion  to  the  Plummer 
Professor,  —  "  there  is  not  in  every  man  that  knowl- 
edge." We  do  not  say  that  this  distinction  between 
God  and  the  Father  is  altogether  new ;  but  we  do  say, 
that  this  is  not  the  Catholic  and  Orthodox  idea  of  the 
Trinity.  According  to  that  idea,  the  "  Father  "  is  iden- 
tical with  the  absolute  Godhead,  is  simply  a  name  for 
that  Godhead.  The  Son  is  generated  from  the  Father, 
the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son ; 
but  the  Father  at  least  is  ultimate  and  absolute.  This 
is  the  idea  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  one  which 
especially  pervades  every  page  of  the  Gospel  of  John. 

A  curious  instance  of  the  author's  confusion  of  mind, 
and  want  of  logical  as  well  as  critical  discrimination,  oc- 
curs on  page  367,  where  he  rashly  undertakes  to  com- 
ment on  the  daring  and  sublime  prophecy  of  Paul  to  the 
Corinthians,  (1  Cor.  xv.  24  -  28,)  in  which  the  Apostle 
predicts  the  final  cessation  of  the  Mediator's  office  and 
the  Son's  divine  reign ;  —  the  passage  of  all  others  in 
the  New  Testament  least  favorable  to  Dr.  Huntington's 
views,  but  which  he  endeavors  to  pervert  to  his  own  use 
by  "  private  interpretation,"  and  bungles  deplorably  in  so 
doing.  "At  last,  when  all  the  purposes  of  the  propiti- 
ation are  accomplished,  —  in  that  dim,  far-off,  well-nigh 

inconceivable  future, this  incarnate  *  Head  over 

all  things  to  the  Church '  will  render  up  the  kingdom  to 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY.  35 

the  Father  and  resume  his  place  in  the  co-equal  Three, 
the  indivisible  One."  Resume  his  place !  So  then  at 
present,  and  until  that  "  far-off,  well-nigh  inconceivable 
future,"  the  Son  has  no  place  in  the  co-equal  Three. 
Who  occupies  it  meanwhile  ?  Or  is  the  second  Person 
in  abeyance?  Commentators  have  inferred  from  this 
passage  a  final  cessation  of  the  Trinity ;  Dr.  Huntington 
would  seem  to  infer  a  postponement  of  it  until  the  end. 
We  should  really  like  to  know,  for  curiosity's  sake,  what 
the  author  had  in  his  mind  when  he  penned  these  words ; 
we  confess  our  own  "intellectual  bankruptcy"  here. 
Paul  declares,  in  the  most  unmistakable  terms,  that  a 
time  will  come  when  Christ,  having  put  all  things  under 
his  feet,  shall  no  longer  reign,  but  shall  "  himself  be  sub- 
ject unto  Him  that  put  all  things  under  him,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all."  Dr.  Huntington  calls  this  a  resum- 
ing of  his  place  in  the  "  co-equal  Three ; "  that  is,  he 
shall  continue  to  reign,  and  not  "  be  subject."  As  Ma- 
caulay  said  of  one  of  Basil  Montagu's  proofs  of  the  inno- 
cence of  Lord  Bacon,  "  We  know  no  way  of  answering 
such  arguments  except  by  stating  them."*  We  are 
reminded,  by  this  attempt  to  make  white  black,  of  the 
work  of  one  Meyer,  written  to  prove  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  from  the  Old  Testament  alone,  f  The  text  on 
which  he  principally  relies  as  being,  on  the  whole,  "the 
most  clear  and  conclusive,"  is  Deut.  vi.  4,  "Hear,  O 
Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord." 

"  It  would  seem  to  require  some  audacity  "  to  handle 
Paul  in  such  a  fashion,  yet  not,  perhaps,  more  than  was 

*  We  quote  from  memory,  and  are  not  sure  of  the  precise  words, 
t  De  Mysterio  S.  S.  Trinitatis  ex  solius  Veteris  Testament! 
Libris  demonstrate. 


36  DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

needed  to  enunciate  the  following  sentence,  in  which  the 
author  browbeats  simple  folk  for  using  words  in  the  only 
sense  in  which  they  are  capable  of  being  understood : 
"  What  shall  be  said  of  the  mental  proportions  of  men 
who  persist  in  the  dull  fallacy  of  imputing  to  believers 
in  the  Trinity  of  God,  who  is  a  Spirit,  the  notion  of  an 
arithmetic  relation  ?  "  *  &c.  Does  Dr.  Huntington  im- 
agine that,  by  mere  dint  of  sovereign  scorn,  he  can  emp- 
ty words  of  their  obvious  and  only  possible  meaning  ? 
If  Trinity  or  Threeness,  a  noun  of  number,  does  not  ex- 
press an  arithmetic  relation,  what  in  the  name  of  reason 
and  of  language  does  it  express  ?  and  why  make  use  of 
the  term  ?  Justin  Martyr,  who  used  to  be  regarded  as 
authority  in  these  matters,  and  whose  "  mental  propor- 
tions" would  perhaps  compare  not  unfavorably  with 
those  of  the  author  of  this  discourse,  expressly  declares 
that  the  Father  and  the  Word  are  not  merely  logically, 
but  arithmetically,  distinct,  not  yv^prj,  but  dpi6jj.u. 

The  word  "  Person "  too,  it  seems,  does  not  mean 
person  in  this  connection,f  but  something  quite  differ- 
ent from  what  is  usually  understood  by  that  term. 
One  is  driven  to  ask,  Why  write  a  long  sermon  on  a 
subject  in  relation  to  which  the  principal  terms  em- 

*  And  yet,  with  the  strangest  self-contradiction,  the  author  sub- 
joins in  a  note  to  this  very  passage  (p.  379),  that  it  will  be  made 
to  appear  "  that  it  is  three,  not  less  and  not  more,  which,  in  the 
nature  of  numbers  and  of  forms,  admits  the  greatest  relative  combi- 
nation of  simplicity  and  variety,  and  especially  meets  the  abstract 
conditions  of  the  ontological  problem."  Our  venerated  teacher  in 
theology,  when  one  of  the  youths  of  the  class  discoursed  in  this 
style,  would  inquire,  with  a  dubious  shake  of  the  head :  "  Are  you 
quite  sure,  Mr. ,  that  you  know  what  you  are  talking  about  ? " 

t  See  note  to  p.  375. 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY.  37 

ployed   are   professedly  discharged   of  their   ordinary 
import,  and  become  words  of  unknown  signification  ? 

The  fact  is,  the  metaphysic  of  the  doctrine  was 
always  a  delicate  and  sore  point  with  its  advocates. 
Although,  in  its  present  form,  a  genuine  product  of 
rationalism,  —  a  pure  creation  of  the  understanding, 

—  yet  the  moment  the  understanding  offers  to  approach 
it,  however  reverently,  with  however  sincere  a  desire 
to  appropriate  its  import,  it  is  warned  off  the  ground 
as  incompetent  or  dangerous.     Candid  inquirers,  who 
would  fain  know  what  they  believe,  are  treated  with 
dissolving  views,  as  children  tease  one  another  with  the 
partial  showing  of  some  treasure  not  suffered  to  be  fair- 
ly seen.     The  doctrine  is   presented  as  an  article   of 
faith ;  and  when  we  attempt  to  lay  hold  of  it  with 
honest   apprehension,  it   is  snatched   away  or   turned 
about  in  such  a  manner  as  to  baffle  scrutiny.     We  be- 
gin to  consider  the  numerical  aspect,  and  immediately 
it  is  withdrawn ;    we  examine  the  Persons,  and  they 
disappear ;  if  we  would  rest  in  the  One,  the  Three  is 
thrust  forward ;  if  we  would  analyze  the  Three,  the 
One  is  returned  upon  us.     "  It  is  a  mystery,"  we  are 
told.     "  You  are  to  believe  in  it,  but  must  not  look  it  in 
the  face."     When  Roscellinus,  writing  in  the  interest 
and  defence  of  the  Trinity,  endeavored  to  explain  it 
with  his  "  one  Substance  and  three  Things,"  the  expla- 
nation was  condemned  as  heresy  and  tritheism,  and  the 
author   compelled  to   flee   his  country.      The   precise 
line  of  demarcation  between  a  modality  and  a  person  — 
the  line  which  separates  Sabellianism  from  Tritheism 

—  has  never  been  defined ;  and  every  statement  of  it 
verges  to  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  extremes.     The 


38  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TKINITT. 

coyness  of  theology  on  this  subject  derives  some  excuse 
from  the  fact  that  all  attempts  to  seize  the  details  of  it 
lead  to  absurdities.  Its  ablest  expounders  have  been 
guilty  of  such.  Even  Anselm,  one  of  the  wisest  of 
theologians  and  of  men,  is  betrayed  into  shocking  plati- 
tudes and  the  grossest  anthropomorphism.  In  attempt- 
ing to  show  *  why  the  Son  rather  than  any  other  per- 
son of  the  Godhead  should  have  become  man,  he 
argues  that,  if  one  of  the  others  had  assumed  this 
condition,  there  would  have  been  two  sons  in  the  God- 
head, the  son  of  Mary  and  the  Son  of  God.  And 
again,  "  If  the  Father  had  become  man,  there  would 
have  been  two  grandsons  in  the  Trinity;  the  Father 
would  have  been  the  grandson  of  the  parents  of  the 
Virgin,  by  his  assumed  humanity;  and  the  Word,  al- 
though in  that  case  it  would  have  had  nothing  human 
in  it,  would  yet  have  been  the  grandson  of  the  Virgin, 
because  he  would  have  been  the  son  of  her  son."  f 

Singularly  unfortunate  is  Dr.  Huntington,  and  unhis- 
torical,  in  his  position  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
is  the  great  safeguard  against  pantheism  on  the  one 
hand  and  against  idolatry  on  the  other.  J  Nothing  is 
more  notorious  than  the  fact  that  the  rise  of  idolatry  in 
the  Christian  Church  was  contemporaneous  with,  or 
immediately  subsequent  to,  the  Trinitarian  determina- 
tions of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  Equally  notori- 
ous is  it  that  the  Trinitarian  faiths,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Hindu,  have  been  most  pantheistic,  and  that,  on  the 


*  In  the  Cur  Deus  Homo  ? 

t  German  translation,  (Erlangen,  1834,)  p.  75. 

J  See  pp.  381,  382. 


DK.   HUNTING-TON    ON    THE    TRINITY.  39 

other  hand,  the  one  religion  in  the  world  which  has 
been,  through  all  its  periods  and  in  all  nations,  entirely 
free  from  idolatry  is  strictly  Unitarian,  —  the  religion 
of  Islam. 

But  we  pass  to  a  matter  of  graver  import.  We 
ventured  to  assert,  in  our  opening  remarks  on  this  dis- 
course, that  its  author  did  not  understand  the  doctrinal 
bearings  of  the  dogma  he  has  undertaken  to  defend. 
With  an  evident  desire  to  be  orthodox  in  his  theology, 
he  is  not  orthodox  according  to  any  standard  known 
to  us,  certainly  not  according  to  any  standard  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  He  attempts  to  join  what  the  Church 
has  put  asunder,  and  professes  what  the  Church  has 
condemned.  The  proof  of  this  assertion  is  found  in 
his  application  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  to  that  of 
the  Atonement.*  In  his  exposition  of  the  latter  doc- 
trine, he  makes  the  idea  of  a  suffering  God  an  essen- 
tial and  pivotal  point.  Now  the  truth  is,  this  idea,  so 
far  from  being  a  constituent  element  in  the  orthodox 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  applied  to  the  Atonement,  is 
even  —  as  the  preacher  would  have  known,  had  he 
fathomed  the  meaning  of  the  doctrine,  or  studied  its 
historic  development  —  incompatible  with  and  antago- 
nistic to  it.  He  infers  that  Deity  suffered  together 
with  humanity  in  Christ,  from  the  nature  of  the  union 
between  the  two.  "  But  the  union  of  the  two  natures 
was  real,  organic,  —  not  apparent  only,  not  dramatic, 
nor  mechanical  ;  so  that  when  the  Saviour  suffered, 
God  suffered/'  (p.  390.)  Now  it  belongs  to  the  very 
essence  of  the  Trinitarian  creed,  —  that  is,  to  its  doc- 

*  See  pp.  386  et  seq.  to  395. 


40  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

trine  concerning  Christ,  —  that  the  union  of  God  and 
man  in  the  person  of  the  Redeemer  was  not  &  fusion  of 
the  two  natures  into  one  nature,*  but  a  co-ordination 
and  conjugation  of  the  two  in  one  person.  The  person 
is  one,  the  natures  are  two.  Christ  is  not  —  if  we  may 
use  such  language  without  irreverence  —  a  cross  be- 
tween Deity  and  humanity,  but  perfect  God  and  per- 
fect man.  So  it  was  decided  in  the  final  decision  of 
the  nature  of  the  union,  at  the  Council  of  Chalcedon 
(A.  D.  451),  which,  after  the  New  Testament,  is  still, 
to  this  day,  the  highest  authority  in  the  Church  on  this 
subject.  Dr.  Huntington  may  call  this  a  "dramatic 
union,"  and  flout  it  as  such ;  nevertheless  it  is  the 
union  established  by  the  Church,  whose  language  is  : 
"The  difference  between  the  two  natures  not  being 
destroyed  by  the  union,  but  rather,  the  property  of 
each  nature  being  preserved,  and  concurring  in  one 
person  and  one  hypostasis."  f  If  Dr.  Huntington  re- 
jects the  authority  of  this  statement,  then  he  rejects  the 
authority  of  the  Church  on  this  subject.  Then  he  sets 
up  his  own  opinion,  which  others  indeed  may  share 
with  him,  but  which  has  no  authority,  against  that  of 
the  Church.  This  he  has  certainly  a  right  to  do  on 
Protestant  ground,  but  then  he  must  not  appeal  to  au- 
thority. 

This  statement,  it  will  be  seen,  precludes  the  notion 
that  Deity  suffered  in  the  supreme  Passion.     But  to 

#  Even  the  so-called  Athanasian  Creed  explains  the  union  to 
be  "  not  by  confusion  of  substance,  but  by  unity  of  person." 

"\  Ovdapov   TTJS   TWV  (pixrecov   8ia(J)opas    dvrjprjiievrjs  $ia  TTJV 
evaxriv,  (Tco£op£vr)s  8e  pa\\ov  TTJS  IdioTrjTOS  I/tare  pas 
(Is  fv  7rpd<ra>7roi>  /cat  \ilav  vTrocrracriv  crvvTpf%ovcrT]s- 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY.  41 

leave  no  doubt  on  the  subject,  the  same  Council  which 
decided  the  nature  of  the  hypostatic  union  condemned 
specifically  and  by  name  this  very  doctrine  of  a  suf- 
fering God.  It  was  a  part  of  the  Eutychian  or  Mono- 
physite  heresy.  In  fact,  the  Trinitarian  doctrine  owes 
its  development  in  part  to  the  protest  of  the  Christian 
consciousness  against  this  idea,  which  seemed  to  be  a 
necessary  corollary  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Monarchians,* 
and  which  gave  them  the  soubriquet  of  Patripassians. 

Dr.  Huntington  then  is  not  orthodox  in  his  view  of 
the  nature  of  Christ  and  the  Atonement.  "We  intend 
no  reproach  by  this  assertion,  but  we  think  it  important 
for  the  right  apprehension  of  orthodoxy  and  the  honor 
of  the  Church  universal,  to  point  out  the  fact,  to  define 
his  position  in  this  regard.  His  doctrine  of  Christ  and 
the  Atonement  is  not  the  orthodox  doctrine,  but  one 
which  he  sets  up  for  himself  on  his  own  responsibility. 
He  is  a  Eutychian.  We  do  not  condemn  him  in  this, 
we  only  define  him.  We  condemn  no  man  for  any 
opinion  he  sincerely  holds.  But  we  do  condemn  the 
opinion  itself  as  a  monstrous  invention  ;  we  condemn  it 
as  a  base  travesty  of  the  orthodox  theory  of  the  Atone- 
ment ;  f  we  condemn  it  as,  next  to  "Transubstantia- 
tion,"  the  most  revolting  that  was  ever  propounded 
within  the  sphere  of  the  Christian  Church.  And  we 
charge  Dr.  Huntington  with  gross  inconsistency  in 
repudiating  with  such  emphasis  the  idea  of  a  dying 
God,  while  advocating  that  of  a  suffering  one.  "  God 

*  "  Ipsum  Patrem  passum  esse."  —  Tertull.  adv.  Praxeam. 

t  The  orthodox  theory  of  the  Atonement  is  the  production  of 
St.  Anselm,  who  knows  nothing  of  a  suffering  God,  and  indeed  lays 
no  stress  on  suffering  at  all  as  an  element  in  the  Keconciliation. 


42  DK.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

did  not  perish  :  how  strange  and  sad  that  the  thought- 
less perversions  or  wilful  misrepresentations  of  hostile 
theologians  should  have  made  such  a  statement  neces- 
sary." *  The  indignant  sorrow  expressed  in  these 
words  strikes  us,  we  must  say,  as  quite  out  of  place. 
The  word  perish  means  to  pass  away,  to  pass  out  of 
sight.  No  one  ever  used  it  as  applied  to  God,  in  any 
other  sense  than  that  of  the  putting  off  of  the  visible 
form.  And  that  is  precisely  what  did  take  place. 
Surely  he  who  cannot  find  in  the  radical  idea  of  Divin- 
ity the  impossibility  of  suffering,  need  never  boggle  at 
the  word  perish. 

We  have  touched  but  few  of  the  errors,  as  we  deem 
them,  of  this  unfortunate  discourse,  but  have  shown 
enough  of  error  in  it  to  make  good  our  allegation  of  the 
inconclusiveness  of  most  of  its  reasoning,  and  its  mis- 
apprehension of  the  import  and  bearings  of  the  dogma 
it  defends.  The  task  has  not  been  a  pleasant  one,  but 
seemed  to  be  due  to  the  cause  of  that  truth  to  which  by 
profession  and  name  the  Christian  Examiner  is  pledged. 
We  regret  the  publication  of  the  sermon  ;  it  mars  the 
volume  that  contains  it,  and  does  equal  injustice  to  its 
author  and  the  cause  he  advocates.  No  one  can  esti- 
mate that  author's  real  ability  more  highly  than  our- 
selves. But  Dr.  Huntington  is  no  theologian.  His 
confession  might  have  weight,  his  reasons  have  none. 
If  he  felt  himself  impelled  by  stringent  conviction  to 
embrace,  and  with  public  confession .  to  espouse  the 
Athanasian  faith,  and,  contenting  himself  with  simple 

*  Page  390. 


DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  43 

avowal,  had  assumed  that  position,  none  would  have 
blamed  and  many  would  have  praised.  But  in  under- 
taking to  expound  that  faith  he  has  done  it  a  cruel 
injury,  inasmuch  as  one  imprudent  and  incompetent 
defender  is  more  injurious  than  many  adversaries. 
Should  he  live  some  ten  years  longer  in  the  world,  — 
we  are  sure  they  will  be  useful  and  honorable  years,  — 
and  continue  to  grow  and  seek  to  inform  himself  of  the 
matter  handled  in  this  discourse,  he  will  also  regret  its 
publication  and  wish  to  recall  it.  He  will  see  more 
plainly  than  we  can  point  them  out  its  inadequacy  and 
its  errors.  He  will  see  also  that  the  old  doctrine  whose 
new  revelation  makes  him  glad  and  whose  new  wine 
inflames  him,  in  whatsoever  sense  it  is  true  at  all,  is  not 
the  whole  truth,  and  is  not  the  negation,  but  the  com- 
plement, of  that  against  which  he  arrays  it.  There  is 
a  great  deal  more  in  it  than  he  now  sees,  and  what  is 
best  and  deepest  in  it  he  does  not  see,  if  one  may  judge 
his  vision  by  his  word. 

We  shall  have  failed  to  make  ourselves  understood, 
and  shall  deem  ourselves  unfortunate,  if  in  these  criticisms 
we  have  seemed  to  impugn  the  Christian  doctrine  em- 
bodied in  the  "  Trinity."  It  is  only  the  forced  con- 
struction of  that  doctrine  in  the  Constantinopolitan 
Creed,  and  the  claim  that  any  construction  of  it,  by  any 
council  or  creed,  is  of  evangelical  and  binding  authority, 
against  which  we  protest.  The  belief  in  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  embraces  and  oscumenizes 
Christendom  in  one  confession.  The  dogma  of  Triper- 
sonality  confuses  and  divides.  The  confession  is  com- 
mon, the  interpretation  of  it  must  be  left  to  the  individual 
mind  and  heart.  We  would  not  be  supposed  to  think 


44  DR.   HUNTINGTON   ON   THE   TRINITY. 

lightly  of  its  import.  To  us  it  is  the  sum  and  summit 
of  Christian  truth.  We  see  in  it  that  which  specifically 
distinguishes  our  religion  from  all  antecedent  and  con- 
temporary faiths,  exactly  defining  it  against  polytheism 
on  the  one  hand  and  Hebrew  and  Arabian  monotheism 
on  the  other  ;  evangelically  dividing  it  from  Persian 
dualism  on  this  side  and  Hindu  tritheism  on  that.  We 
see  in  it  the  sublimest  and  completest  theory  of  God. 
A  God  whose  nature  is  neither  diffracted  by  multiplicity 
nor  yet  concluded  in  singularity,  who  is  neither  the 
unconscious  All  of  Pantheism,  nor  the  insulated  Self  of 
Judaism  ;  a  God  whose  essence  is  not  to  be  sought  in 
lone  seclusion,  but  in  everlasting  self-communication, 
whose  being  is  a  unit  and  yet  a  process,  —  a  process 
of  which  the  two  associated  names  —  the  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  —  are  the  august  terms  and  the  perfect 
method  ;  a  God  who  allies  himself  with  finite  intelli- 
gence by  the  co-eternal,  mediating  Word,  and  reflects 
himself  in  human  nature  and  enchurches  himself  in 
human  society  by  the  ever  proceeding,  sanctifying  Spirit. 
So  believing,  we  also  join  in  the  reverent  and  dear 
ascription,  "  Glory  be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son, 
and  to  the  Holy  Ghost ;  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is 
now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end  !  Amen." 


PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT  TOR 
THE  TRINITY. 


[From  the  Monthly  Journal  of  the  Unitarian  Association.] 


WE  propose  to  examine  in  this  number  of  our  Jour- 
nal, at  some  length,  the  late  sermon  of  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton,  in  which  he  gives  his  reasons  for  accepting  the 
Doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  The  title  of  the  sermon  is, 
"  Life,  Salvation,  and  Comfort  for  Man  in  the  Divine 
Trinity." 

When  one,  who  has  for  twenty  years  been  our  com- 
panion and  friend  in  preaching  the  great  doctrines  of 
Liberal  Christianity,  changes  his  convictions,  and  leaves 
us,  it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  we  feel  deep  sorrow 
at  his  loss.  When,  as  in  the  present  case,  he  is  one 
of  our  able  ministers,  the  sorrow  is  proportionally 
greater.  But,  beside  this,  Dr.  Huntington  is  a  man 
whom  we  love  and  esteem  for  his  manliness,  ear- 
nestness, and  Christian  fidelity.  We  shall  speak  with 
perfect  plainness  of  the  defects  in  his  argument ;  we 
shall  point  out  the  weakness  of  his  logic ;  we  shall 
show  the  root  of  what  we  believe  to  be  the  great 
error  of  his  life.  But,  meantime,  we  shall  try  to  say 
all  this  as  we  should  say  it  to  himself  alone. 


46  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

"We  believe  that  "  a  man  can  do  nothing  against  the 
truth,"  and  that  all  of  Prof.  Huntington's  efforts  and 
abilities  are  worse  than  wasted  in  defending  the  Church 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  If  our  doctrine  is  of  God,  we 
shall  prevail,  though  all  the  great  men  of  our  body 
prove  apostate.  We  shall  march  prospering,  though 
not  by  their  presence.  Let  them  leave  us  one  by  one ; 
let  them  go  where  the  Church  is  larger,  and  there  is 
a  greater  tide  of  religious  sympathy;  let  them  leave 
our  little  flock  for  the  great  folds.  We  have  a  certain 
compensation  for  their  loss,  —  a  sense  of  satisfaction  in 
feeling  that  no  foundation  is  touched,  and  that  our  con- 
victions are  proved  to  stand,  not  in  the  power  of  man, 
but  in  that  of  God.  There  is  a  double  feeling,  a  com- 
plex sentiment ;  sorrow  like  that  which  Jesus  felt  when 
many  went  back,  and  walked  no  more  with  him ;  but 
joy  like  that  which  led  him  to  bless  God  that  he  had 
hidden  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and 
revealed  them  unto  babes.  As,  when  Leonidas  dis- 
missed from  his  ranks  all  but  the  three  hundred,  those 
who  were  left  felt  that  they  could  depend  on  each 
other;  so  we,  when  men  whose  affinities  are  only 
half  with  the  cause  of  a  free  and  advancing  theology 
retire,  can  close  up  our  ranks  with  a  certain  joy  that 
those  at  least  who  remain,  and  who  stand  these  tests, 
are  surely  reliable. 

There  is  no  need,  then,  for  apology  in  examining 
his  sermon,  however  searching  that  examination  may 
prove.  This  is  what  Dr.  Huntington  himself  must 
wish.  He  writes  and  prints  for  this  purpose,  —  that 
we  may  examine;  and  thoroughly  examine,  what  he 
says.  But,  in  order  to  do  this  work,  it  seems  most 


FOB    THE    TRINITY.  47 

proper  to  begin  by  asking  why  .Unitarians  reject  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  then  we  can  inquire  whether 
Dr.  Huntington  has  adduced  satisfactory  answers  to 
these  objections,  and  whether  he  has  brought  forward 
any  new  statement  of  the  doctrine,  or  arguments  in  sup- 
port of  it,  which  invalidate  the  Unitarian  criticisms  of 
the  Church  doctrine. 

Our  course  of  argument,  therefore,  will  be,  — 

Briefly  to  recount  the  reasons  which  have  induced 
Unitarians  to  reject  the  Trinity. 

To  see  if  Dr.  Huntington  has  replied  to  these  reasons. 

To  examine  the  positions  he  has  taken,  and  the  argu- 
ments by  which  he  supports  that  position. 

The  principal  reasons,  then,  for  rejecting  the  Trinity, 
as  assigned  by  Unitarians,  are  these :  — 

1.  That  it  is  nowhere  taught  in  the  New  Testament. 

2.  That  every  statement  of  the  Trinity,  which  has 
ever  been  made,  has  been  either  (1.)  self-contradictory; 
(2.)  unintelligible ;  (3.)  Tritheistic ;  (4.)  or  Unitarian, 
in  the  form  of  Sabellianism  or  of  Arianism. 

3.  That  the  arguments  for  it  are  inadequate. 

4.  That  the  arguments  against  it  are  overwhelming. 

5.  That  the  good  ascribed  to  it  does  not  belong  to 
it,  but  to  the  truths  which  underlie  it. 

6.  That  great  evils  to  the  Church  come  from  it. 

7.  That  it  is  a  doctrine  of  philosophy,  and  not  of 
faith. 

8.  That  we  can  trace  its  gradual  historic  formation 
in  the  Christian  Church. 

9.  That  it  is  opposed  to  a  belief  in  the  real  Divinity 
of  Christ,  and  to  a  belief  in  his  real  humanity ;  thus 


48  PBOF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

undermining  continually  the  faith  of  the  Church  in  the 
Divine  Humanity  of  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord. 

Proceeding,  then,  to  an  examination  of  these  reasons, 
we  say, — 

I.  The  Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  nowhere 
stated  in  the  New  Testament. 

To  prove  this,  as  it  is  a  negative  proposition,  would 
require  us  to  go  through  the  whole  New  Testament. 
But  we  are  saved  this  necessity  by  the  fact,  that  we 
have  a  statement  on  this  point  from  one  of  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton's  own  witnesses,  and  one  on  whom  he  mainly  relies. 
He  brings  forward  NEANDER,  the  great  Church  histo- 
rian, as  a  believer  in  the  Trinity  (p.  361),  and  again 
(p.  378),  by  an  error  which  he  has  since  candidly  ad- 
mitted, quotes  him  as  saying,  "  It  is  the  fundamental 
article  of  the  Christian  faith,"  —  which  is  just  what 
he  denies  in  the  following  passage.  We  call  Neander 
to  the  stand,  however,  now,  to  have  his  unimpeachable 
testimony  as  a  Trinitarian  (and  a  Trinitarian  claimed 
by  Dr.  Huntington  with  pride)  to  the  fact,  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  nowhere  stated  in  the  New 
Testament.  This  is  what  Neander  says  of  the  Trinity, 
in  the  first  volume  of  his  great  work  on  Church  His- 
tory (p.  572,  Torrey's  translation):  — 

"  We  now  proceed  to  the  doctrine  in  which  Theism, 
taken  in  its  connection  with  the  proper  and  fundamental 
essence  of  Christianity  or  with  the  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion, finds  its  ultimate  completion,  —  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.  This  doctrine  does  not  strictly  belong  to  the 
fundamental  articles  of  the  Christian  faith ;  as  appears 
sufficiently  evident  from  the  fact,  that  it  is  expressly 
held  forth  in  no  one  particular  passage  of  the  New 


FOR    THE    TRINITY.  49 

Testament :  for  the  only  one  in  which  it  is  done,  the 
passage  relating  to  the  three  that  bear  record  (1 
John  v.  7),  is  undoubtedly  spurious,  and,  in  its  un- 
genuine  shape,  testifies  to  the  fact,  how  foreign  such 
a  collocation  is  from  the  style  of  the  New  Testament 
Scriptures.  We  find  in  the  New  Testament  no  other 
fundamental  article  than  that  of  which  the  Apostle  Paul 
says,  that  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is 
laid,  —  the  annunciation  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah." 

With  this  authority  we  might  be  content.  But  Dr. 
Huntington  seems  to  differ  from  Neander  in  thinking 
that  Jesus  has  himself  stated  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
and  stated  it  clearly  and  fully,  in  the  baptismal  for- 
mula (Matthew  xxviii.  19).  He  seems  to  say  that  this 
is  "a  clear  and  full  declaration  of  the  fundamental 
article  of  Christian  belief."  He  says,  "-Now,  if  ever, 
Christ  will  distinctly  proclaim  the  doctrine  of  Christen- 
dom ; "  and  he  then  declares  that  Christi  in  this  passage 
told  his  Church  to  baptize  "  in  the  Triune  name." 

Not  in  the  Triune  name,  certainly.  This  is  an  as- 
sumption of  our  friend.  He  may  think  that  this  is  im- 
plied ;  that  this  is  to  be  inferred  ;  that  this  is  what  Christ 
meant :  but  certainly  it  is  not  what  Christ  said.  Christ 
gives  us  here  three  objects  of  baptism,  no  doubt ;  but  he 
does  not  say  that  they  are  one.  How  far  this  baptismal 
formula  is  "  a  clear  and  full  declaration  "  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  will  appear  thus.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  declare^,  — 

1.  That  the  Father  is  God. 

2.  That  the  Son  is  God. 

3.  That  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God. 

4.  That  the  Holy  Ghost  is  a  person,  like  the  Father 
and  the  Son. 

4 


50  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

5.  That  thes.e  three  persons  constitute  one  God. 

Of  these  five  propositions,  all  of  which  are  essential 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  not  one  is  stated  in  the 
baptismal  formula.  Christ  here  says  nothing  about  the 
Deity  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  or  the  Holy  Ghost ;  noth- 
ing about  the  personality  of  either  of  them ;  and  nothing 
about  their  Unity.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive,  therefore, 
how  Dr.  Huntington  can  bring  himself  to  call  this  a 
command  to  baptize  into  the  Triune  name.  We  will 
not  refer  to  his  own  explanation  of  Unitarian  criticisms, 
and  say,  "  How  desperate  the  shifts  of  a  determined  the- 
ory !  "  because  we  do  not  think  such  an  insinuation  just 
or  kind.  If  he  chooses  to  say  that  his  old  friends  resort 
to  desperate  shifts  to  maintain  their  theories,  because 
they  do  not  choose  to  be  convinced,  he  may  say  so  of 
us:  we  will  not  say  that  of  him.  Such  insinuations, 
however,  we  trust,  dropped  from  him  in  the  haste  and 
heat  of  writing.  We  do  not  believe  that  he  intended 
either  bitterness  or  severity. 

Dr.  Huntington  adds,  "  Our  faith  is  summoned  to  the 
three  persons  of  the  one  God."  But  nothing  is  said  of 
three  persons  ;  nothing  is  said  of  their  being  one  God. 

He  says,  "  No  hint  is  given  that  there  is  any  differ- 
ence of  nature,  dignity,  duration,  power,  or  glory  be- 
tween them." 

We  admit  it,  but  also  say  that  no  hint  is  given  of  any 
equality  of  nature,  dignity,  duration,  power,  or  glory  be- 
tween them.  Which  way,  then,  is  the  argument  ?  Christ 
does  not  state,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  three  are  un- 
equal or  different ;  he  does  not  state,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  they  are  equal  and  the  same.  The  inference  of 
proof  from  this  fact  seems  to  us  to  be  this :  If  the  Apos- 


FOB    THE    TRINITY.  51 

ties,  when  Christ  spoke  to  them,  were  already  full  be- 
lievers in  the  Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the  fact 
that  Christ  did  not  deny  it  would  be  an  argument  in  its 
favor ;  but  if  the  Apostles  were,  at  that  time,  wholly  ig- 
norant of  the  Trinity,  then  the  fact  that  he  did  not  assert 
it  distinctly  at  least  shows  that  he  did  not  mean  to  teach 
it  at  that  time.  That  inference  appears  to  us  a  very 
modest  one.  But  Dr.  Huntington  will  admit  that  they 
did  not  know  the  doctrine ;  for  he  tells  us  that  it  was 
the  purpose  of  Christ  to  teach  it  to  them  at  that  time. 
To  which  we  can  only  reply,  If  he  meant  to  teach  the 
doctrine,  why  did  he  not  teach  it? 

That  the  word  TRINITY  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  that  it  was  invented  by  Tertullian,  is  a 
matter  of  little  consequence ;  but  that  the  doctrine  itself 
should  be  nowhere  stated  in  the  New  Testament,  we 
conceive  to  be  a  matter  of  very  great  consequence.  "We 
have  seen  that  Dr.  Huntington's  attempt  to  show  that  it 
is  stated  in  the  baptismal  formula  is  a  failure.  If  not 
stated  there,  we  presume  that  he  will  not  maintain  that 
it  is  stated  anywhere.  We  therefore  agree  with  Nean- 
der  in  saying,  that,  whether  the  doctrine  be  true  or  not, 
it  is  not  taught  distinctly  in  the  New  Testament.  If 
taught  at  all,  it  is  only  taught  inferentially ;  that  is,  it  is 
a  matter  of  reasoning,  not  a  matter  of  faith.  It  is  met- 
aphysics :  it  is  not  religion. 

II.  The  second  reason  why  Unitarians  reject  the 
Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  this :  — 

That  every  statement  of  the  Trinity  has  proved,  on 
examination,  to  be  either  (1.)  a  contradiction  in  terms, 
or  (2.)  unintelligible,  or  (3.)  Tritheistic,  or  (4.)  Unitari- 
anism  under  a  Trinitarian  form. 


52  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

Let  us  examine  this  objection.  What  is  the  general 
statement  of  the  Trinity,  as  made  by  the  Orthodox 
Church,  Catholic  and  Protestant?  Fortunately  this 
question  is  easily  answered. 

Orthodoxy  has  been  consistent  since  the  Middle  Ages 
in  its  general  statement,  however  much  it  may  have  va- 
ried in  its  explanations  of  what  it  meant  by  that  state- 
ment. 

(1.)    Contradiction  in  Terms. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  it  stands  in  the  creeds 
of  the  churches,  is  this :  — 

There  is  in  the  nature  of  God  three  persons,  —  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  these  three 
are  one  being.  They  are  the  same  in  substance,  equal 
in  power  and  glory.  Each  of  these  three  persons  is 
very  God,  infinite  in  all  attributes ;  and  yet  there  are 
not  three  Gods,  but  one  God. 

According  to  the  general  doctrine  of  Orthodoxy,  the 
unity  of  God  is  in  being,  essence,  and  substance ;  that  is, 
God  is  one  being,  God  is  one  essence,  God  is  one  sub- 
stance. The  threefold  division  stops  short  of  the  being 
of  God :  it  does  not  penetrate  to  his  essential  nature ;  it 
does  not  divide  his  substance. 

What,  then,  is  the  Trinity  ?     It  is  a  Trinity  of  persons. 

But  what  is  meant  by  "  person,"  as  used  in  this  doc- 
trine ?  According  to  the  common  and  familiar  use  of 
the  word  at  the  present  time,  three  persons  are  three 
beings.  Personality  expresses  the  most  individual  ex- 
istence imaginable.  If,  therefore,  the  word  "  person  " 
is  to  be  taken  according  to  the  common  use  of  the  phrase, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  would  be  evidently  a  contra- 


FOR   THE    TRINITY. 


53 


diction  in  terms.  It  would  be  equivalent  to  saying,  God 
is  one  being,  but  God  is  three  beings  ;  which  again  would 
be  equivalent  to  saying  that  one  is  three. 

Now,  Trinitarians  generally  are  too  acute  and  clear- 
sighted to  fall  into  such  a  palpable  contradiction  as  this. 
It  is  a  common  accusation  against  them,  that  they  be- 
lieve one  to  be  three,  and  three  one ;  but  this  charge  is, 
in  most  cases,  unjust.  This  would  be  only  true  in  case 
they  affirmed  that  God  is  three  in  the  same  way  in  which 
he  is  one ;  but  they  do  not  usually  say  this.  They  de- 
clare that  he  is  one  being,  —  not  three  beings.  They 
declare  that  the  threefold  distinction  relates  to  personal- 
ity, not  to  being ;  and  that  they  use  the  word  "  person," 
not  in  the  common  sense,  but  in  a  peculiar  sense,  to  ex- 
press, as  well  as  they  can,  a  distinction,  which,  from  the 
poverty  of  language,  no  word  can  be  found  to  express 
exactly.  Thus  St.  Augustine  confessed,  long  ago,  "  We 
say  that  there  are  three  persons,  not  in  order  to  say 
anything,  but  in  order  not  to  be  wholly  silent."  Non  ut 
aliquid  diceretur,  sed  ut  ne  taceretur.  And  so  Arch- 
bishop Whately,  in  the  notes  to  his  Logic,  regrets  that 
the  word  "  person  "  should  ever  have  been  used  by  our 
divines ;  and  says,  "  If  hypostasis,  or  any  other  com- 
pletely foreign  word,  had  been  used  instead,  no  idea  at 
all  would  have  been  conveyed,  except  that  of  the  expla- 
nation given ;  and  thus  the  danger,  at  least,  of  being 
misled  by  a  word,  would  have  been  avoided." 

(2.)    The    Unintelligible  Statement. 

The  Trinitarian  thus  avoids  asking  us  to  believe  a 
contradiction :  but  in  avoiding  this,  he  runs  upon  an- 
other rock,  —  that,  namely,  of  not  asking  us  to  believe 


54  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

anything  at  all ;  for  if  "  person "  here  does  not  mean 
what  it  commonly  means,  and  if  it  be  impossible,  from 
the  poverty  of  language,  to  define  precisely  the  idea 
which  is  intended  by  it,  we  are  then  asked  to  believe 
a  proposition  which  Trinitarians  themselves  are  unable 
to  express.  But  a  proposition  which  is  not  expressed 
is  no  proposition.  A  proposition,  any  important  term 
of  which  is  unintelligible,  is  wholly  unintelligible. 

To  make  this  matter  clear,  let  us  put  it  into  a  con- 
versational form.  We  will  suppose  that  two  persons 
meet  together,  —  one  a  Unitarian,  the  other  a  Trinita- 
rian. 

Trinitarian.  You  do  not  believe  the  Trinity  ?  Then 
you  cannot  be  saved.  No  one  can  be  saved  who  denies 
the  Trinity.  It  is  a  vital  and  fundamental  doctrine. 

Unitarian.  Tell  me  what  it  is,  and  I  will  see  if  I 
can  believe  it.  What  is  the  Trinity  ? 

Trin.     God  exists  as  one  being,  but  three  persons. 

Unit.  What  do  you  mean  by  "  person  "  ?  Do  you 
mean  a  person  like  Peter,  James,  or  John  ? 

Trin.  No:  we  use  "person"  from  the  poverty  of 
language.  We  do  not  mean  that. 

Unit.     What,  then,  do  you  mean  by  it  ? 

Trin.  It  is  a  mystery.  We  cannot  understand  it 
precisely. 

Unit.  I  have  no  objection  to  the  doctrine  being  mys- 
terious ;  I  believe  a  great  many  things  which  are  myste- 
rious :  but  I  don't  want  the  language  to  be  mysterious. 
You  might  as  well  use  a  Greek  or  a  Hebrew  or  a  Chi- 
nese word,  and  ask  me  to  believe  that  there  are  three 
hypostases  or  three  prosopa  in  Deity,  if  you  do  not  tell 
me  what  you  mean  by  the  word  "  person." 


FOR   THE    TRINITY.  55 

Trin.  It  is  a  great  mystery.  It  is  a  matter  of  faith, 
not  of  reasoning.  You  must  believe  it,  and  not  specu- 
late about  it. 

Unit.  Believe  it?  Believe  what?  I  am  waiting 
for  you  to  tell  me  what  I  am  to  believe.  I  am  ready 
to  exercise  my  faith  ;  but  you  are  tasking,  not  my  faith, 
but  my  knowledge  of  language.  I  suppose  that  you 
do  not  wish  me  to  believe  words,  but  thoughts.  I  wish 
to  look  through  the  word  and  see  what  thought  lies  be- 
hind it. 

Now,  it  seems  to  us  that  this  is  a  very  fair  demand 
of  the  Unitarian.  To  ask  us  to  believe  a  proposition, 
any  important  term  of  which  is  unintelligible,  is  pre- 
cisely equivalent  to  asking  us  to  believe  no  proposition 
at  all.  Let  us  listen  to  Paul :  "  Even  things  without 
life,  giving  sound,  whether  pipe  or  harp,  except  they 
give  a  distinction  in  the  sounds,  how  shall  it  be  known 
what  is  piped  or  harped  ?  For,  if  the  trumpet  give  an 
uncertain  sound,  who  shall  prepare  himself  for  battle  ? 
So  likewise  ye,  except  ye  utter  by  the  tongue  words 
easy  to  be  understood,  —  how  shall  it  be  known  what  is 
spoken  ?  for  ye  shall  speak  into  the  air.  .  .  .  For,  if  I 
know  not  the  meaning  of  the  voice,  I  shall  be  unto  him 
that  speaketh  a  Barbarian ;  and  he  that  speaketh,  a 
Barbarian  unto  me." 

It  is  of  no  use  to  talk  about  mystery  in  order  to  ex- 
cuse ourselves  for  not  using  intelligible  language.  That 
which  is  mysterious  is  one  thing :  that  which  is  unintel- 
ligible is  quite  another  thing.  We  may  understand 
what  a  mystery  is,  thought  we  cannot  comprehend  how 
it  is ;  but  that  which  is  unintelligible  we  neither  com- 
prehend nor  understand  at  all.  We  neither  know  how 


56  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

it  is  nor  what  it  is.  Thus,  for  example,  the  fact  of 
God's  foreknowledge  and  man's  freedom  is  a  mystery. 
I  cannot  comprehend  how  God  can  foreknow  what  I 
am  to  do  to-morrow,  and  yet  I  be  free  to  do  it  or  not  do 
it.  I  cannot  comprehend  how  Jesus  should  be  deliv- 
ered to  death  by  the  determined  counsel  and  foreknowl- 
edge of  God,  and  yet  the  Jews  have  been  free  agents 
in  crucifying  him,  and  accountable  for  it.  These  things 
are  mysteries ;  but  they  are  not  unintelligible  as  doc- 
trines. I  see  what  is  meant  by  them.  There  is  no 
obscurity  in  the  assertion  that  God  foreknows  every- 
thing ;  nor  in  the  other  assertion,  that  man  is  a  free 
agent.  I  can  see  clearly  what  is  implied  in  both 
statements,  although  my  mind  cannot  grasp  both,  and 
bring  them  together,  and  show  the  way  in  which  they 
may  be  reconciled.  So,  too,  infinity  is  a  mystery.  We 
cannot  comprehend  it.  Our  mind  cannot  go  round  it, 
grasp  it,  sustain  it.  Our  thought  sinks  baffled  before 
the  attempt  to  penetrate  to  the  depth  of  such  a  won- 
derful idea.  But  we  understand  well  enough  what  is 
meant  by  infinity.  There  is  nothing  obscure  in  the 
statement  of  the  fact  that  the  universe  is  unbounded. 
So  the  way  in  which  a  flower  grows  from  its  seed  is 
mysterious.  We  cannot  comprehend  how  the  wonder- 
ful principle  of  life  can  be  wrapped  up  in  those  little 
folds,  and  how  it  can  cause  the  root  to  strike  downward, 
and  the  airy  stalk  to  spring  lightly  upward,  and  the 
leaves  to  unfold,  and,  last  of  all,  the  bright,  consummate 
flower  to  open  its  many-colored  eye.  But  certainly  we 
can  understand  very  well  the  statement  that  a  flower 
grows,  though  we  do  not  comprehend  how  it  grows. 
Do  not,  then,  tell  us,  when  you  have  announced  a 


FOR    THE   TRINITY.  57 

doctrine,  the  language  of  which  is  unintelligible,  that 
you  have  told  us  a  mystery.  You  have  done  no  such 
thing. '  Your  proposition  is  not  mysterious  :  it  is  unin- 
telligible. It  is  not  a  mystery:  it  is  only  a  mystifi- 
cation. 

(3.)    The  Tritheistic  Statement. 

Leaving,  then,  this  ground  of  mystery,  and  attempt- 
ing to  define  more  clearly  what  he  means  by  three  per- 
sons and  one  substance,  the  Trinitarian  often  sinks  the 
Unity  in  the  Triplicity,  and  so  runs  ashore  upon  Trithe- 
ism.  This  happens  when  he  explains  the  term  "  person" 
as  implying  independent  existence  ;  in  which  case  the 
Unity  is  changed  into  Union.  Then  we  have  really 
three  Gods :  the  FATHER,  who  devises  the  plan  of  re- 
demption ;  the  SON,  who  goes  forth  to  execute  it ;  and 
the  HOLY  SPIRIT,  who  sanctifies  believers.  If  there 
are  these  three  distinct  beings,  they  can  be  called  one 
God  only  as  they  are  one  in  will,  in  aim,  in  purpose, 
—  only  as  they  agree  perfectly  on  all  points.  The 
Unity  of  God,  then,  becomes  only  a  unity  of  agreement, 
not  a  unity  of  being.  This  is  evidently  not  the  Unity 
which  is  taught  in  the  Bible,  where  Jesus  declares  that 
the  first  of  all  the  commandments  is,  "  Hear,  O  Israel ! 
the  Lord  our  God  is  ONE  Lord." 

Moreover,  against  such  a  Trinity  as  this  there  are 
insuperable  objections,  from  grounds  of  reason  as  well 
as  of  Scripture.  For  God  is  the  Supreme  Being,  the 
Most  High ;  and  how  can  there  be  three  Supreme  Be- 
ings, three  Most  High  Gods  ?  Again  :  God  is  the  first 
cause ;  but  if  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
are  each  God,  and  all  equal  in  power  and  majesty, 


58  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

• 
and  have  each  an  independent  existence,  then  there 

are  three  first  causes;  which  is  evidently  impossible. 
Again  :  one  of  the  attributes  of  God  is  his  independent 
or  absolute  existence.  A  being  who  depends  on  an- 
other cannot  be  the  Supreme  God.  The  Father,  Son, 
and  Spirit,  therefore,  cannot  depend  on  each  other ;  for 
each,  by  depending  on  another,  would  cease  to  be  the 
independent  God.  But  if  they  do  not  depend  on  each 
other,  then  each  ceases  to  be  God,  who  is  the  First 
Cause ;  for  that  being  is  not  the  first  cause  who  has  two 
other  beings  independent  of  him.  Other  arguments  of 
the  same  kind  might  be  adduced  to  show  that  there 
cannot  be  three  necessary  beings.  In  fact,  all  the  argu- 
ments from  reason,  which  go  to  prove  the  Unity  of 
God,  prove  a  unity  of  nature,  not  of  agreement. 

"  But  why  argue  against  Tritheism  ?  "  you  may  say. 
"  Are  any  Tritheists  ? "  Yes  :  many  Trinitarians  are 
in  reality  Tritheists,  by  their  own  account  of  them- 
selves. There  are  many  who  make  the  Unity  of  God 
a  mere  unity  of  agreement,  and  talk  about  the  society 
in  the  Godhead,  and  the  intercourse  between  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Spirit* 

*  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell,  a  favorite  authority  with  Prof.  Hun- 
tington,  whom  Prof.  Huntington  quotes  largely,  and  whose  views 
he  earnestly  recommends,  gives  us  his  testimony  to  this  point, 
thus  ("  God  in  Christ,"  pp.  130,  131) :  — 

"  A  very  large  portion  of  Christian  teachers,  together  with  the 
general  mass  of  disciples,  undoubtedly  hold  three  real  living  per- 
sons in  the  interior  nature  of  God ;  that  is,  three  consciousnesses, 
wills,  hearts,  understandings." 

"  A  very  large  portion  of  Christian  teachers'''  hold,  then,  to  a  be- 
lief  in  three  Gods ;  and  with  them  is  joined  "  the  general  mass  of 
the  disciples."  The  only  Unity  held  by  these  teachers  is,  he  goes 


FOR   THE   TRINITY.  59 

Opposed  to  this  kind  of  Trinity  is  another  view, 
in  which  the  Unity  is  preserved,  but  the  Trinity  lost. 
According  to  this  view,  God  is  one  Being,  who  reveals 
himself  in  three  ways,  —  as  Father,  as  Son,  as  Spirit, 
—  or  sustains  three  relations,  or  manifests  himself  in 
three  modes  of  operation.  The  Trinity  here  becomes 
a  nominal  thing,  and  is,  in  reality,  only  Unitarianism 
with  an  Orthodox  name.  This  kind  of  Trinity  also 
is  very  prevalent,  and  is  the  only  one  really  maintained 
by  men  of  high  standing  in  the  Orthodox  Church,  both 
in  Europe  and  America.  According  to  this  view,  the 
word  "person"  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  means 
the  same  as  the  corresponding  word  in  Greek  and 
Latin  formerly  meant ;  namely,  the  outward  character, 
not  the  inward  individuality.  Thus  Cicero  says,  "I, 
being  one,  sustain  three  persons  or  characters  ;  my  own, 
that  of  my  client,  and  that  of  the  judge,"  —  Ego  unus, 
sustineo  tres  personas. 

This  view  of  the  Trinity  is  commonly  called  Modal- 
ism,  or  Sabellianism ;  and  is  also  widely  held  by  those 
who  call  themselves  Trinitarians.  It  is,  in  fact,  only 
Unitarianism  under  a  Trinitarian  name.* 

on  to  say,  "  a  social  Unity."  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  are, 
in  their  view,  socially  united  only  ;  and  preside  in  that  way,  as  a 
kind  of  celestial  Tritheocracy,  over  the  world.  This-  heresy,  he 
says,  "  because  of  its  clear  opposition  to  Unitarianism,  is  counted 
safe,  and  never  treated  as  a  heresy."  That  is,  the  Christian 
Church  allows  the  belief  in  three  Gods,  and  will  not  discipline 
those  who  hold  that  opinion  ;  but,  if  you  believe  strictly  and  only 
in  one  God,  you  cannot  be  saved ! 

*  Dr.  Bushnell  goes  on  to  say  (p.  133),  "While  the  Unity  is 
thus  confused  and  lost  in  the  threeness,  perhaps  I  should  admit 
that  the  threeness  sometimes  appears  to  be  clouded  or  obscured 


60  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

(4.)    TJie  Subordination  View. 

Avoiding  these  two  extremes,  and  yet  wishing  to 
retain  a  distinct  idea  of  Unity  and  Tripersonality,  the 
Trinitarian  is  necessarily  driven  upon  a  third  view,  in 
which  the  Father  is  the  only  really  Supreme  and  Inde- 
pendent Being,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit  subordi- 
nate and  dependent. 

This  view,  which  is  called  the  subordination  scheme, 
or  Arianism,  is  Unitarianism  again  in  another  form; 
and  this  view  also  is  entertained  by  many  who  still  re- 
tain the  name  of  "  Trinitarians."  According  to  this 
view,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  really  God,  but 
are  so  by  a  derived  divinity.  God  the  Father  commu- 
nicates his  divinity  to  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 
This  is  the  view  really  taken  in  the  Nicene  Creed, 
though  adopted  in  opposition  to  the  Arians ;  and  was  the 
doctrine  of  the  earliest  Church  Fathers  before  the  Arian 
controversy  began.  In  the  Nicene  Creed,  we  read  that 
the  Son  is  "  God  of  («)  God,  Light  of  (eV)  Light,  true 
God  of  true  God ; "  the  "  of"  here  being  the  same  as 
"  from,"  and  denoting  origin  and  derivation. 

by  the  Unity.  Thus  it  is  sometimes  protested,  that  in  the  word 
'  person '  nothing  is  meant  beyond  a  threefold  distinction  ; 
though  it  will  always  be  observed,  that  nothing  is  really  meant 
by  the  protestation ;  that  the  protester  goes  on  to  speak  and  to 
reason  of  the  three,  not  as  being  only  somewhats  or  distinctions, 
but  as  metaphysical  and  real  persons Indeed,  it  is  a  some- 
what curious  fact  in  theology,  that  the  class  of  teachers  who  pro- 
test over  the  word  '  person/  declaring  that  they  mean  only  a 
threefold  distinction,  cannot  show  that  there  is  really  a  hair's 
breadth  of  difference  between  their  doctrine  and  the  doctrine 
asserted  by  many  of  the  later  Unitarians." 


FOR   THE   TRINITY.  61 

This  doctrine  seems,  in  reality,  to  have  less  in  its 
favor  than  either  of  the  others.  By  calling  the  Son 
and  Holy  Spirit  God,  it  contrives  to  make  three  distinct 
Gods,  and  so  is  Tritheism ;  and  yet,  by  making  them 
dependent  on  the  Father,  it  becomes  Unitarianism 
again.  Thus,  singularly  enough,  this  attempt  at  mak- 
ing a  compromise  between  Unity  and  Trinity  loses 
both  Unity  and  Trinity :  for  it  makes  three  Gods,  and 
so  loses  the  Unity ;  and  yet  it  makes  Christ  not  "  God 
over  all,"  not  the  Supreme  Being,  and  so  loses  the 
Trinity. 

Between  these  different  views,  between  Tritheism, 
Sabellianism,  and  Arianism,  the  Orthodox  Trinity  has 
always  swung  to  and  fro,  —  inclining  more  to  one  or 
to  the  other,  according  to  the  state  of  controversy  in 
any  particular  age.  When  the  Arian  or  Tritheistic 
views  were  proclaimed  and  defended,  the  Orthodoxy  of 
the  Church  swung  over  towards  Sabellianism,  making 
the  Unity  strong  and  solid  ;  and  the  Trinity  became  a 
thin  mode  or  an  airy  abstraction.  When  Sabellianism, 
thus  encouraged,  came  openly  forward,  and  defended  its 
system  and  won  adherents,  then  Church  Orthodoxy 
would  hasten  to  set  up  barriers  on  that  side,  and  would 
fall  back  upon  Tritheistic  ground,  making  the  Three- 
fold Personality  a  profound  and  real  distinction,  pene- 
trating the  very  nature  of  Deity,  and  changing  the 
Unity  of  Being  into  a  mere  Unity  of  Will  or  agree- 
ment. We  will  venture  to  say,  that  there  has  never 
yet  been  a  definition  of  the  Trinity  which  has  not  been 
either  Tritheistic  or  Modalistic ;  and  Church  Ortho- 
doxy has  always  stood  either  on  Tritheistic  or  on  Sa- 
bellian  ground.  In  other  words,  the  Orthodox  Trinity 


62  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

of  any  age,  when  searched  to  the  bottom,  has  proved  to 
be  Unitarianism  after  all,  —  Unitarianism  in  the  Tri- 
theistic  or  in  the  Sabellian  disguise ;  for  the  Tritheism 
of  three  co-equal,  independent,  and  absolute  Gods  is 
too  much  opposed  both  to  reason  and  Scripture  to  be 
able  ever  to  maintain  itself  openly  as  a  theology  for 
any  length  of  time. 

The  analogies  which  are  used  to  explain  the  Trinity 
are  all  either  Sabellian  or  Tritheistic.  Nature  has 
been  searched  in  all  ages  for  these  analogies,  by  which 
to  make  the  Trinity  plain ;  but  none  have  ever  been 
found  which  did  not  make  the  Trinity  either  Sabellian- 
ism  or  Tritheism.  They  are  either  three  parts  of  the 
substance,  or  else  three  qualities  or  modes  of  the  sub- 
stance. 

Thus  we  have  instances  in  which  the  three  are  made 
the  three  parts  of  one  being,  or  substance;  as  in  man, 
—  spirit,  soul,  body ;  thought,  affection,  will ;  head, 
heart,  hand. 

One  Being  with  three  distinct  faculties  is  Tritheism  : 
one  Being  acting  in  three  directions  is  Sabellianism. 

Time  is  past,  present,  and  future.  Syllogism  has  its 
major,  minor,  and  conclusion.  There  are  other  like 


St.  Patrick  took  for  his  illustration  the  three  leaves  of 
trefoil  or  clover.  Others  have  imagined  the  Trinity 
like  a  triangle ;  or  they  have  referred  to  the  three  qual- 
ities of  space,  —  height,  breadth,  width  ;  or  of  fire,  — 
form,  light,  and  heat ;  or  of  a  noun,  which  has  its  mas- 
culine, feminine,  and  neuter ;  or  of  a  government,  con- 
sisting of  king,  lords,  and  commons,  or  of  executive, 
legislative,  and  judiciary. 


FOR   THE    TRINITY.  63 

This  survey  of  Church  Trinity  shows  that  it  is  either 
one  in  which,  — 

1.  The  persons  are  not  defined;  or  an  unintelligible 
Trinity. 

2.  Or  which  defines  person  and  Unity  in  the  usual 
sense ;  or  a  contradictory  Trinity. 

3.  Or  which  defines  person  as  usual,  and  the  Unity 
as  only  Union ;  or  Tritheism. 

4.  Or  which  defines  person  as  only  manifestation ;  or 
Sabellianism. 

These  four  are  all  the  views  ever  hitherto  given,  and 
are  all  untenable.  We  might  stop  here,  and  say  that 
the  Trinity  is  utterly  unsupported.  There  is  no  need 
of  going  to  the  Scripture  to  see  if  it  is  taught  there ;  for 
we  have,  as  yet,  nothing  to  look  for  in  Scripture. 

The  Trinitarian's  difficulty  appears  to  be  in  defining 
person.  But  possibly  he  may  say,  "  I  cannot,  indeed, 
give  a  positive  idea  of  person ;  but  I  can  give  a  negative 
one.  I  cannot  say  what  it  is  ;  but  I  can  say  what  it  is 
not.  It  is  not  a  mere  mode,  on  the  one  hand ;  and  not 
being,  on  the  other.  We  must  neither  confound  the 
persons  nor  divide  the  substance." 

We  will,  then,  go  further,  and  say,  as  Trinitarians 
have  never  yet  defined  person,  without  making  it  either 
a  mode  or  a  being,  so  they  never  can  define  it  otherwise. 
There  is  no  third  between  being  and  mode.  They  must 
either  confound  the  persons  or  divide  the  substance. 

Again :  that  which  differences  one  person  in  the  Deity 
from  another  must  be  either  a  perfection  or  an  imper- 
fection. There  is  nothing  between  these.  But  it  can- 
not be  an  imperfection;  for  no  imperfection  exists  in 
God :  and  it  cannot  be  a  perfection  ;  for  then  the  other 


64  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

two  persons  would  want  a  divine  perfection,  and  would 
be  imperfect. 

III.  The  arguments  in  support  of  the  Trinity  are 
wholly  inadequate.  Since,  according  to  Neander,  the 
Trinity  is  not  stated  in  the  New  Testament,  it  follows 
that  it  is  a  doctrine  of  inference  only ;  that  is,  a  piece  of 
human  reasoning.  Now,  we  have,  no  doubt,  a  perfect 
right  to  infer  doctrines  'from  Scripture  which  are  not 
stated  there ;  but,  as  Protestants,  we  have  no  right  to 
make  these  inferences  fundamental,  or  essential  to  the 
religious  life.  They  may,  indeed,  be  metaphysically 
essential ;  that  is,  essential  to  a  well-arranged  system : 
but  they  are  not  morally  essential ;  that  is,  not  essential 
to  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the  soul. 

But  this  is  just  what  Prof.  Huntingtonf  attempts  to 
do.  He  tries  to  show  that  there  is  a  doctrine  essential 
to  the  life,  peace,  and  progress  of  man,  which  the  New 
Testament  has  omitted  to  state ;  which  is  neither  dis- 
tinctly stated  by  our  Saviour  nor  by  any  of  his  Apos- 
tles ;  which  has  been  left  to  be  inferred,  and  inferred  by 
the  mere  processes  of  unaided  human  reason. 

What  arguments  does  he  allege  for  this  ? 

His  first  and  principal  argument  is  the  universal 
"belief  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity. 

On  this,  Prof.  Huntington  lays  great  stress.      He 


"  Truth  is  not  determined  by  majorities ;  and  yet  it 
would  be  contrary  to  the  laws  of  our  constitution  not  to 
be  affected  by  a  testimony  so  vast,  uniform,  and  sacred 
as  that  which  is  rendered  by  the  common  belief  of  Chris- 


FOR    THE    TRINITY.  65 

tian  history  and  the  Christian  countries  to  the  truth  of 
the  Trinity.  There  is  something  extremely  painful,  not 
to  say  irreverent,  towards  the  Providence  which  has 
watched  and  led  the  true  Christian  Israel,  in  presuming 
that  a  tenet  so  emphatically  and  gladly  received  in  all 
the  ages  and  regions  of  Christendom  as  almost  literally 
to  meet  the  terms  of  the  test  of  Vincentius,  —  Believed 
always,  everywhere,  and  by  all,  —  is  unfounded  in  reve- 
lation and  truth.  Such  a  conclusion  puts  an  aspect  of 
uncertainty  over  the  mind  of  the  Church,  scarcely  con- 
sistent with  any  tolerable  confidence  in  that  great  prom- 
ise of  the  Master,  that  he  would  be  with  his  own  all 
days."  — p.  359. 

To  which  we  answer,  — 

(1.)  That,  according  to  Dr.  Bushnell  (Mr.  Hunting- 
ton's  own  witness),  there  never  has  been,  nor  is  now, 
any  such  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  he  as- 
serts. The  larger  part  of  the  Church  have  always 
"  divided  the  substance  "  of  the  Deity,  and  another  large 
portion  have  "  confounded  the  persons ; "  and  so  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Church,  while  holding  the  word  "  Trinity," 
have  never  believed  in  the  Tri-unity  at  all. 

Prof.  Huntington  summons  Dr.  Bushnell  as  a  witness 
to  the  practical  value  of  the  Trinity ;  and  we  may  sup- 
pose something  such  an  examination  as  this  to  take 
place :  — 

Prof.  Huntington.  Tell  us,  Dr.  Bushnell,  what  in- 
stances you  know  of  persons  who  have  been  converted 
or  deeply  blessed  by  the  holy  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

Dr.  Bushnell.  I  have  known  of  "a  great  cloud  of 
witnesses,"  "living  myriads,"  "who  have  been  raised  to 
a  participation  of  God  in  the  faith  of  this  adorable  mys- 
tery." (Huntington,  p.  413.) 

Prof.  H.    Mention  some  of  them. 
5 


66  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

Dr.  B.  "  Francis  Junius,"  "  two  centuries  and  a  half 
ago,"  —  a  Professor  "  at  Heidelberg  [Leyden  ?],  testified 
that  he  was,  in  fact,  converted  from  atheism  by  the 
Christian  Trinity ; "  also  "  the  mild  and  sober  Howe ; " 
"  Jeremy  Taylor ; "  also  "  the  Marquis  de  Rentz,"  "  Ed- 
wards," and  "  Lady  Maxwell."  (Huntington,  p.  414.) 

Unitarian.  Say,  Dr.  Bushnell,  whether,  in  your 
opinion,  the  majority  of  Christians  really  believe  in  the 
Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

Dr.  B.  "A  very  large  portion  of  the  Christian  teach- 
ers, together  with  the  general  mass  of  disciples,  undoubt- 
edly hold  three  living  persons  in  the  interior  nature  of 
God."  (Bushnell,  "God  in  Christ,"  p.  130.) 

Unit.     Is  that  Scriptural  or  Orthodox  ? 

Dr.  B.  No.  It  is  only  "  a  social  Unity."  It  is  "  a 
celestial  Tritheocracy."  If-  "boldly  renounces  Ortho- 
doxy at  the  point  opposite  to  Unitarianism."  (Ibid., 
p.  131.) 

Unit.  Do  I  understand  you  to  be  now  speaking  of 
the  properly  Orthodox  ministers  and  churches  gener- 
ally? 

Dr.  B.  "  Our  properly  Orthodox  teachers  and  church- 
es, while  professing  three  persons,  also  retain  the  verbal 
profession  of  one  person.  They  suppose  themselves 
really  to  hold  that  God  is  one  person :  and  yet  they  most 
certainly  do  not ;  they  only  confuse  their  understanding, 
and  call  their  confusion  faith.  This  I  affirm  on  the 
ground  of  sufficient  evidence ;  partly  because  it  cannot 
be  otherwise,  and  partly  because  it  visibly  is  not."  (Ibid., 
p.  131.) 

Unit.  Do  you  believe,  Dr.  Bushnell,  that  spiritual 
good  can  come  from  such  a  belief  in  the  Trinity  as  you 


FOR   THE   TRINITY.  67 

describe  to  be  "  undoubtedly  "  that  of  "  the  general  mass 
of  disciples  "  ? 

Dr.  B.  "Mournful  evidence  will  be  found  that  a 
confused  and  painfully  bewildered  state  is  often  pro- 
duced by  it.  They  are  practically  at  work  in  their 
thoughts  to  choose  between  the  three;  sometimes  ac- 
tually and  decidedly  preferring  one  to  another ;  doubt- 
ing how  to  adjust  their  mind  in  worship;  uncertain, 
after,  which  of  the  three  to  obey ;  turning  away,  possi- 
bly, from  one  with  a  feeling  of  dread  that  might  well 
be  called  aversion;  devoting  themselves  to  another  as 
the  Eomanist  to  his  patron  saint.  This,  in  fact,  is  Poly- 
theism, and  not  the  clear,  simple  love  of  God.  There 
is  true  love  in  it,  doubtless ;  but  the  comfort  of  love  is 
not  here.  The  mind  is  involved  in  a  dismal  confusion, 
which  we  cannot  think  of  without  the  sincerest  pity.  No 
soul  can  truly  rest  in  God,  when  God  is  in  two  or  three, 
and  these  in  such  a  sense  that  a  choice  between  them 
must  be  continually  suggested."  (Ibid.,  p.  134.) 

Unit.  This  state  of  mind  is  that  of  undoubtedly  the 
general  mass  of  the  disciples  ? 

Dr.  B.    It  is.    (Ibid.,  p.  130.) 

Unit.  Are  there  others,  calling  themselves  Trini- 
tarians, who  hold  essentially  the  Unitarian  doctrine  ? 

Dr.  B.  Yes.  "  It  is  a  somewhat  curious  fact  in  the- 
ology, that  the  class  of  teachers  who  protest  over  the 
word  ( person,'  declaring  that  they  mean  only  a  three- 
fold distinction,  cannot  show  that  there  is  really  a 
hair's  breadth  of  difference  between  their  doctrine  and 
the  doctrine  asserted  by  many  of  the  later  Unitarians. 
They  may  teach  or  preach  in  a  very  different  manner ; 
they  probably  do :  but  the  theoretic  contents  of  their 


68  PROF.  HUNTING-TON'S  ARGUMENT 

opinion  cannot  be  distinguished.  Thus,  they  say  that 
there  is  a  certain  divine  person  in  the  man  Jesus 
Christ;  but  that,  when  they  use  the  term  'person/ 
they  mean,  not  a  person,  but  a  certain  indefinite  and 
indefinable  distinction.  The  later  Unitarians,  mean- 
time, are  found  asserting  that  God  is  present  in  Christ 
in  a  mysterious  and  peculiar  communication  of  his 
being ;  so  that  he  is  the  living  embodiment  and  ex- 
press image  of  God.  If,  now,  the  question  be  raised, 
'  Wherein  does  the  indefinable  distinction  of  one  differ 
from  the  mysterious  and  peculiar  communication  of 
the  other  ? '  or,  '  How  does  it  appear  that  there  is  any 
difference? '  there  is  no  living  man,  I  am  quite  sure, 
who  can  invent  an  answer."  (Ibid.,  p.  135.) 

Unit.  Is  it  not  true  that  both  of  these  views  are 
sometimes  held  alternately  by  Trinitarians  ? 

Dr.  B.  "  Probably  there  is  a  degree  of  alternation, 
or  inclining  from  one  side  to  the  other,  in  this  view  of 
Trinity,  as  the  mind  struggles,  now  to  embrace  one, 
and  now  the  other,  of  two  incompatible  notions.  Some 
persons  are  more  habitually  inclined  to  hold  the  three ; 
a  very  much  smaller  number,  to  hold  the  one."  (Ibid., 
p.  134) 

Unit.  But  can  they  not  hold  the  Unity  with  this 
Trinity  ? 

Dr.  B.  "  No  man  can  assert  three  persons,  mean- 
ing three  consciousnesses,  wills,  and  understandings, 
and  still  have  any  intelligent  meaning  in  his  mind,  when 
he  asserts  that  they  are  yet  one  person.  For,  as  he 
now  uses  the  term,  the  very  idea  of  a  person  is  that 
of  an  essential,  incommunicable  monad,  bounded  by 
consciousness,  and  vitalized  by  self-active  will;  which 


FOR   THE    TRINITY.  69 

being  true,  he  might  as  well  profess  to  hold  that  three 
units  are  yet  one  unit.  When  he  does  it,  his  words 
will,  of  necessity,  be  only  substitutes  for  sense."  (Ibid., 
p.  181.) 

(2.)  But  suppose  that  the  belief  of  the  Church  in  the 
Trinity  was  as  universal  as  Prof.  Huntington  asserts 
and  Dr.  Bushnell  denies,  what  would  be  its  value  ?  His 
argument  proves  too  much.  If  it  proves  the  Trinity 
to  be  true,  it  proves,  a  fortiori,  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  to  be  the  true  Church,  and  Protestantism  to 
be  an  error ;  for  Martin  Luther,  at  one  time,  was  the 
only  Protestant  in  the  world.  Suppose  that  a  Roman 
priest  had  come  to  him  then.  He  might  have  ad- 
dressed Luther  thus :  — 

"  It  is  certainly  an  impressive  testimony  to  the  truth 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  that  the  Christian  world  have 
been  so  generally  agreed  in  it.  Truth  is  not  deter- 
mined by  majorities ;  and  yet  it  would  be  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  our  constitution  not  to  be  affected  by  a 
testimony  so  vast,  uniform,  and  sacred  as  that  which 
is  rendered  by  the  common  belief  of  Christian  history 
and  the  Christian  countries  to  the  doctrines  and  prac- 
tices of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  We  travel  abroad, 
through  these  converted  lands,  over  the  round  world. 
We  enter,  at  the  call  of  the  Sabbath  morning  light,  the 
place  of  assembled  worshippers  ;  let  it  be  the  newly 
planted  conventicle  on  the  edge  of  the  Western  forest, 
or  the  missionary  station  at  the  extremity  of  the  East- 
ern continent ;  let  it  be  the  collection  of  Northern 
mountaineers,  or  of  the  dwellers  in  Southern  valleys  ; 
let  it  be  in  the  plain  village  meeting-house,  or  in  the 
magnificent  cathedrals  of  the  old  cities ;  let  it  be  the 


70  PROF.  HUNTINGDON'S  ARGUMENT 

crowded  congregation  of  the  metropolis,  or  the  '  two 
or  three'  that  meet  in  faith  in  upper  chambers,  in 
log-huts,  or  under  palm-trees ;  let  it  be  regenerate 
bands  gathered  to  pray  in  the  islands  of  the  ocean,  or 
thankful  circles  of  believers  confessing  their  depend- 
ence and  beseeching  pardon  on  ships'  decks,  in  the 
midst  of  the  ocean.  So  we  pass  over  the  outstretched 
countries  of  both  hemispheres ;  and  it  is  well-nigh 
certain  —  so  certain  that  the  rare  and  scattered  excep- 
tions drop  out  of  the  broad  and  general  conclusion  — 
that  the  lowly  petitions,  the  fervent  supplications,  the 
hearty  confessions,  the  eager  thanksgivings,  or  the 
grand  peals  of  choral  adoration,  which  our  ears  will 
hear,  will  be  uttered  according  to  the  grand  ritual  of 
the  Church  of  Rome.  This  is  the  voice  of  the  unhesi- 
tating praise  that  embraces  and  hallows  the  globe." 

What  would  Luther  have  replied  to  that  ?  He  would 
have  said :  "  Truth  must  have  a  beginning.  It  is  al- 
ways, at  first,  in  a  minority.  The  gate  of  it  is  strait, 
the  path  to  it  narrow,  and  few  find  it.  All  reforms 
are,  at  the  beginning,  in  the  hands  of  a  small  number. 
If  God  and  truth  are  on  our  side,  what  do  we  care 
for  your  multitudes  ? "  We  can  make  the  same  an- 
swer now. 

Prof.  Huntington  proceeds  to  give  his  own  creed 
in  regard  to  the  Trinity,  —  to  state  his  own  belief. 

God,  in  himself,  he  declares,  we  cannot  know  at  all. 
We  know  him  only  in  his  revelation.  "  Out  of  that 
ineffable  and  veiled  Godhead  —  the  groundwork,  if  we 
may  say  so,  of  all  divine  manifestation  (or  theophany), 
there  emerge  to  us,  in  revelation,  the  three  whom  we 
rightly  call  persons,  —  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost." 


FOR   THE   TRINITY.  71 

We  can  only  conceive  of  God,  he  says,  in  action ; 
and  in  action  we  behold  him  as  three.  But  action 
and  revelation  take  place  in  time.  The  Trinity,  there- 
fore, according  to  Prof.  Huntington,  is  only  known  to 
us  in  temporal  manifestation ;  whether  it  exists  in 
eternity  or  not,  we  cannot  tell.  And  yet,  in  the  next 
sentence,  he  goes  on  to  say  that  "  the  Son  is  eternally 
begotten  of  the  Father,"  and  "the  Holy  Ghost  pro- 
ceeds out  of  the  Father,  not  in  time : "  which  is  the 
very  thing  he  had  a  moment  before  professed  to  know 
nothing  about.  It  is  very  difficult,  therefore,  to  tell 
precisely  what  his  view  is.  With  regard  to  the  in- 
carnation of  the  Son  he  is  still  more  obscure.  He  says 
that  "  Christ  comes  forth  out  of  the  Godhead  as  the 
Son;"  that  he  "leaves  the  glory  he  had  with  the 
Father ; "  that,  while  he  is  on  earth,  the  Father  alone 
represents  the  unseen  personality  of  the  Godhead,  and 
that  therefore  the  Son  appears  to  be  dependent  on  him, 
and  submissive ;  that  temporarily,  while  the  Son  is  in 
the  world,  he  remains  ignorant  of  what  the  Father 
knows,  and  says  that  his  Father  is  greater  than  he. 
"  He  lessens  himself  to  dependency  for  the  sake  of  me- 
diation." —  "  All  this  we  might  expect."  This  he  calls 
an  "  instrumental  inequality  between  Son  and  Father :  " 
it  "  is  wrought  into  the  Biblical  language ;  remains  in 
all  our  devotional  habit,  and  ought  to  remain  there." 

In  other  words,  Prof.  Huntington  believes  that  the 
Infinite  God  became  less  than  infinite  in  the  incarna- 
tion. The  common  explanation  of  those  passages  where 
Christ  says,  for  example,  "  My  Father  is  greater  than 
I,"  does  not  satisfy  him.  He  is  not  satisfied  that  Jesus 
said  it  "  in  his  human  nature."  No ;  it  was  the  divine 


72     PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

nature  which  said  it ;  and  it  was  really  GOD  THE  SON, 
who  did  not  know  the  day  nor  the  hour  of  his  own 
coming.  He  lost  a  part  of  his  omniscience.  He  ceased 
to  be  perfect  in  all  his  attributes.  We  should  say,  then, 
that  he  ceased  to  be  God :  but  Prof.  Huntington  main- 
tains that  he  was  God,  nevertheless ;  but  God  less  than 
omnipotent,  —  God  less  than  omniscient ;  God  the  Son, 
so  distinct  from  the  Father  as  to  be  ignorant  of  what 
the  Father  knew,  and  unable  to  perform  what  the 
Father  could  do. 

Prof.  Huntington  seems  to  be  aware  that  some  objec- 
tion may  be  taken  to  this  view,  and  so  goes  on  to  suggest 
that  all  such  objections  will  proceed  from  an  unspiritual 
nature  ;  and  he  intimates  that  no  answer  nor  any  criti- 
cism will  disturb  him  at  all.  "  I  know  in  whom  I  have 
believed,"  will  be  reply  enough  to  all  objections. 

Very  well,  we  say :  matters  of  faith  are  matters  of 
faith,  and  to  be  spiritually  discerned ;  but  matters  of 
opinion  belong  to  the  intellect,  and  are  to  be  intellect- 
ually discerned.  You  come  to  us,  Prof.  Huntington, 
your  old  friends,  who  think  just  as  you  thought  your- 
self, when,  a  few  years  since,  you  gave  seven  reasons 
for  not  believing  the  Trinity,  —  you  come  to  us,  and  call 
on  us  to  believe  it.  "  Believe  what  ?  "  —  "  The  Trin- 
ity." —  "  Well,  what  particular  view  of  the  Trinity  ? 
Tell  us  what  it  is."  He  then  proceeds  to  make  his 
statement :  "  This  is  the  Trinity  you  are  to  believe." 
We  produce  our  objections  to  his  particular  view : 
whereupon  he  suddenly  retires  behind  a  cloud  of  glow- 
ing religious  rhetoric,  recites  to  us  a  passage  from  the 
First  Corinthians,  and  tells  us  plainly  that  we  have  no 
spiritual  insight ;  that  we  are  in  danger  of  "  cold  and 


FOR   THE   TRINITY.  73 

extreme  negatives;"  that  we  have  "too  much  conscious 
complacency  in  our  supposed  originality  ; "  but  that  he 
"  knows  in  whom  he  has  believed." 

Prof.  Huntington  (p.  366)  ascribes  it  to  "  condescen- 
sion "  in  Christ,  to  say  that  "of  that  day  and  hour 
knoweth  not  the  Son."  —  u It  is  condescension  indeed!" 
says  he.  But  this  word  "  condescension  "  does  not  well 
apply  here.  One  does  not  condescend  to  be  ignorant 
of  what  he  knows  :  still  less  does  a  truthful  person  con- 
descend to  say  he  is  ignorant  of  what  he  knows.  We 
may  wisely  condescend  to  help  the  feeble,  and  sympa- 
thize with  the  lowly,  but  hardly  to  be  ignorant  with 
them,  or  to  pretend  to  be  ignorant.  It  is  a  badly 
chosen  word,  and  seems  to  show  the  vacillation  of  the 
writer's  thought. 

IV.  The  arguments  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity are  unanswerable. 

We  infer  that  they  are  unanswerable  from  the  fact 
that  they  are  not  answered.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that 
Prof.  Huntington,  having  been  for  so  many  years  a 
preacher  of  Unitarian  doctrine,  is  acquainted  with  our 
arguments.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that,  in  this  ser- 
mon, he  has  nowhere  attempted  to  reply  to  them.  He 
has  passed  them  wholly  by.  You  would  not  know, 
from  reading  the  discourse,  that  he  had  ever  been  a 
Unitarian,  or  had  ever  heard  of  the  Unitarian  objec- 
tions to  the  Trinity ;  still  less  that  he  had  himself 
preached  against  it.  Unitarians,  for  instance,  have  said, 
that  if  the  Trinity  be  true,  and  if  it  be  so  important  to 
the  welfare  of  the  soul  as  is  contended,  it  would  be  some- 
where plainly  taught  in  the  New  Testament.  Does  Prof. 


74  FBOF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

Huntington  answer  this  argument?  No:  he  answers 
the  argument  from  the  word  "Trinity"  not  being  in  the 
Bible,  and  his  answer  is  sufficient ;  but  he  does  not  an- 
swer the  argument  from  the  fact,  that  the  doctrine  itself 
is  not  anywhere  distinctly  taught,  and  that  none  of  the 
terms  which  have  been  found  essential  to  any  Orthodox 
statement  of  the  doctrine  are  to  be  met  with  in  the  New 
Testament.* 

Nor  does  Prof.  Huntington  anywhere  fairly  meet  the 
Unitarian  argument  from  the  impossibility  of  stating  the 
doctrine  in  intelligible  language.  He  tells  us,  with  his 
usual  eloquence,  what  we  have  often  enough  been  told 
before,  that  there  are  many  things  which  we  do  not  un- 
derstand, and  that  we  must  believe  many  facts  the  mode 
of  which  is  unintelligible.  But  when  we  say,  "  Can  we 
believe  a  doctrine  or  proposition  which  cannot  be  dis- 
tinctly stated  ?  "  he  has  no  answer.  The  Trinity  is  a 
doctrine,  and  must  therefore  be  distinctly  stated  in  order 
to  be  believed.  It  has  not  been  distinctly  stated,f  and 
therefore  cannot  be  believed.  To  this  objection,  Prof. 
Huntington  has  no  reply ;  and  we  may  conclude  that 
it  is  an  unanswerable  objection. 

Dr.  Huntington  uses  an  unnecessary  phrase  about 
those  who  object  to  mystery.  He  calls  the  objection 

*  "  It  has  often  been  asserted  and  admitted,"  says  Twesten,  one 
of  the  strongest  of  modern  Trinitarians,  "  that  even  the  principal 
notions  about  which  the  Church  doctrine  turns  are  foreign  to  the 
New  Testament ;  as  ov<ria  and  wroo-rao-tj,  rpoTros  VTrap^ecos  and 
aTTOKaAu^etts,  rpids  and  opooixna."  (Twesten,  "  Dogmatik," 
Vol.  II.  p.  281.) 

t  "  Who  will  venture  to  say  that  any  of  the  definitions  hereto- 
fore given  of  personality  in  the  Godhead,  in  itself  considered,  — 


FOR   THE    T 

"shallow  self-illusion,"  and  pi 
declaration,  that  all  of  life  is  mysterious.  Can  he  have 
been  a  Unitarian  preacher  for  twenty  years,  and  not 
have  known  that  Unitarians  object  to  mystery  only 
when  it  is  used  by  Trinitarians  as  a  cover  for  obscurity 
and  vagueness  of  statement  ? 

You  ask  us  to  believe  a  precise  statement ;  viz.  that 
"  there  are  three  persons  in  the  Godhead."  We  say, 
"  What  do  you  mean  by  *  person '  ?  "  The  Trinitarian 
answers,  u  It  is  a  mystery."  We  say,  "  We  cannot 
believe  it,  then."  The  Trinitarian  replies,  "  Why,  all 
is  a  mystery.  How  the  grass  grows  is  a  mystery  ;  yet 
you  believe  it."  —  "  No,"  we  say,  "  we  do  not  believe 
it.  When  the  mystery  begins,  our  belief  ends :  we 
believe  up.  to  that  point,  and  no  further."  The  state- 
ment, "  the  grass  grows,"  is  not  a  mystery :  the  fact, 
"  the  grass  grows,"  is  not  a  mystery.  We  believe  the 
fact  and  the  statement.  The  way  in  which  it  grows  is 
mysterious ;  and  we  do  not  believe  anything  about  it. 
"  You  cannot  understand  how  the  grass  grows."  No  ; 
and,  accordingly,  we  do  not  believe  anything  about  how 
the  grass  grows.  But  the  whole  purpose  of  the  Trinity 
is  to  show  how  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
exist.  You  are  not.  satisfied  that  we  receive  what  the 
Scripture  teaches :  you  try  to  show  us  the  howt  and 
then  leave  it  in  obscurity  at  last. 

such  definitions  as  have  their  basis  in  the  Nicene  or  Athanasian 
Creed,  —  are  intelligible  and  satisfactory  to  the  mind  1  At  least, 
I  can  truly  say,  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  them,  if  they  do 
in  fact  exist ;  nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  any  one  been  able,  by 
any  commentary  on  them,  to  make  them  clear  and  satisfactory." 
(Prof.  Stuart,  "Biblical  Repository,"  April,  1835.  See  Wilson, 
"  Trin.  Test.,"  p.  272.) 


76  PROF.  HUNTING-TON'S  ARGUMENT 

Nor  does  Dr.  Huntington  reply  to  the  Unitarian  ex- 
planation of  the  Trinitarian  proof-texts.  Trinitarians 
have  often  quoted  the  texts,  "  /  and  my  Father  are 
one  ;  "  "  He  who  has  seen  me  has  seen  the  Father"  —  in 
proof  of  the  Deity  of  Christ.  Unitarians  have  often 
replied  to  both  of  them :  to  the  first  passage,  that  since 
Jesus  has  also  said  that  his  disciples  were  to  be  one  with 
him,  as  he  is  one  with  God,  it  either  proves  that  the 
disciples  are  also  to  be  God,  or  does  not  prove  that 
Christ  is  God.  To  the  second  passage,  Unitarians  have 
replied  by  reading  the  next  clause,  in  which  Christ 
says,  "  Believest  thou  not  that  I  am  in  the  Father  ?  " 
showing  how  it  is  that  he  reveals  the  Father.  He  is 
in  the  Father,  and  his  disciples  are  in  him.  Those 
who  see  him,  see  the  Father :  those  who  see  his  true 
disciples,  see  the  face  and  image  of  Christ.  These 
answers  are  so  obvious,  and  Prof.  Huntington  must 
have  heard  them  so  often,  that  he  should,  as  a  contro- 
versialist, have  taken  some  notice  of  them.  He  has 
not  done  so. 

He  quotes  the  passage  from  Eph.  i.  20,  2 1 ;  and  says, 
"  Can  this  be  a  creature  ?  "  We  reply,  Can  he  be  any- 
thing but  a  creature  ?  —  he  who  was  set  by  God  in  this 
place  of  honor.  Does  God  set  God,  as  a  reward,  above 
principalities  and  powers  ?  Does  God  make  God  "  head 
over  all  things  in  the  Church  "  ?  Again :  Prof.  Hun- 
tington quotes,  "That,  at  the  name  of  Jesus,  every 
knee  should  bow,  and  every  tongue  confess  that  he  is 
Lord;"  but  he  omits  the  conclusion,  "to  the  glory  of 
God  the  Father." 

He  even  quotes  the  passage,  "  Him  hath  God  exalted 
to  give  repentance  and  forgiveness  of  sin." 


FOR   THE    TRINITY.  77 

And  he  quotes  the  passage,  which  has  staggered  the 
strongest  believers  in  the  Trinity,  where  Paul  declares 
(1  Cor.  xv.),  that,  at  the  end,  Christ  will  give  up  his 
kingdom  to  the  Father,  that  "God  may  be  all  in  all," 
and  explains  it  as  meaning  that "  he  will  resume  his  place 
in  the  coequal  Three,  the  indivisible  One."  Has  he 
left  his  place,  then  ?  Is  that  Orthodox  ?  Prof.  Hun- 
tington  evidently  thinks  so ;  for  he  says,  "  The  Son,  in 
his  character  of  Sonship,  is  retaken,  so  to  speak,  into 
the  everlasting  undivided  One."  So  to  speak.  "VVe 
may  speak  so :  "  But  what  do  we  mean  by  it?"  is  the 
question.  Did  God  the  Son  leave  his  place  in  the 
Godhead  ?  did  he  become  less  than  God  ?  did  he  become 
ignorant  ?  did  he  suffer  and  die  ?  did  he  arise,  and  at 
last  re-ascend,  and  take  his  place,  "  so  to  speak,"  in  the 
Godhead?  If  this  is  meant  as  real  statement,  what 
better  is  it  than  the  Avatars  of  Vishnu  ?  What  sort  of 
Unity  is  left  to  us  ?  We  have  a  Trinity  of  council ;  but 
where  is  the  Unity,  except  of  agreement  ?  One  Divine 
Being  descending,  and  leaving  the  other  Divine  Being 
alone,  temporarily,  on  the  throne  of  the  universe,  until 
the  Divine  Being  who  had  descended  should  re-ascend 
to  take  his  seat  again  "  in  the  coequal  Three  and  indi- 
visible One"! 

One  Unitarian  argument,  which  appears  to  us  unan- 
swerable, is  in  the  fact,  that  the  very  passages  in  which 
the  highest  attributes  are  ascribed  to  Christ  are  always 
those  in  which  his  dependence  and  subordination  are 
most  strongly  asserted.  We  could  throw  aside  all  the 
passages  in  which  Jesus  asserts  directly  his  inferiority, 
—  as,  "  My  Father  is  greater  than  I ;  "  "  Of  mine  own 
self  I  can  do  nothing,"  —  and  take  the  strongest 


78  PRO^.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 


proof-texts  of  the  Trinitarians,  and  ask  for  no  better 
proof  for  the  Unitarian  doctrine  :  "  All  power  is  given 
to  me  in  heaven  and  earth  ;  "  "  The  image  of  the  invisi- 
ble God,  the  first-born  of  every  creature;"  "In  him 
dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily."  Are 
these  passages  written  of  Christ  in  his  divine  or  human 
nature  ?  Not  his  divine  nature  ;  for  to  God  the  Son  all 
power  cannot  be  "given."  God  the  Son  cannot  be 
"  the  image  of  God,"  or  the  "  first-born  of  every  crea- 
ture" The  "  fulness  of  the  Godhead  "  cannot  dwell  in 
God  the  Son.  They  must,  then,  be  said  of  him  in 
his  human  nature  ;  and,  if  so,  they  show  that  the  loftiest 
titles  and  attributes  do  not  prove  him  to  be  God. 

V.  The  good  ascribed  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
does  not  belong  to  it,  but  to  the  truths  which  underlie  it. 

Dr.  Huntington  asserts,  for  example,  that  "  the  Tri- 
unity  of  God  appears  to  be  the  necessary  means  of 
manifesting  and  supporting,  in  the  mind  of  our  race,  a 
faith  in  the  true  personality  of  God." 

If  so,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  two  forms  of  religion 
in  which  the  personality  of  God,  as  absolute  will,  is 
most  distinctly  recognized  (i.  e.  the  Jewish  religion  and 
the  Mohammedan  religion),  should  both  be  ignorant  of 
the  Trinity.  It  is  equally  remarkable  that  the  most 
Pantheistic  religion  in  the  world,  in  which  the  person- 
ality of  God  most  entirely  disappears  (i.  e.  Braminism), 
should  have  a  Trinity  of  its  own.  It  is  also  remarkable, 
on  this  hypothesis,  that  idolatry  in  the  Christian  Church 
(as  worship  of  Mary,  worship  of  saints  and  relics,  &c.) 
should  come  up  with  the  Trinity,  and  flourish  simultane- 
ously with  it. 


FOR    THE    TRINITY.  79 

No:  it  is  not  the  Trinity  which  brings  out  most 
distinctly  the  personality  of  God,  but  the  faith  in  a 
divine  revelation  through  inspired  men.  If  God  can 
dwell  in  the  souls  of  men,  teaching  and  guiding  them, 
he  must  be  a  person  like  the  soul  with  which  he  com- 
munes. Especially  does  the  religious  consciousness  of 
Jesus,  his  simple  and  childlike  communion  with  the 
Heavenly  Father,  bring  God  near  to  the  soul  as  a  per- 
sonal being.  It  is  not  the  Trinity,  but  the  Christian  faith 
which  underlies  it,  which  teaches  the  divine  personality. 

Nor  is  it  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  which  is  neces- 
sary for  a  living  faith  in  God  through  Christ,  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself.  All  that  Dr.  Huntington  says 
of  the  evil  of  sin  is  well  said,  but  has  no  bearing  on  the 
point  before  us.  According  to  Prof.  Huntington's  own 
witnesses,  as  we  have  seen  above,  the  Trinity  was  un- 
known in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  Church.  Was  recon- 
ciliation unknown?  Was  the  forgiving  love  of  Christ 
unknown  ?  If  he  cannot  assert  this,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  not  necessary  to  a  living  faith  in  a  recon- 
ciling God. 

Prof.  Huntington  argues,  that  only  the  sufferings,  and 
actual  sufferings,  of  God  himself,  can  touch  the  sinful 
heart;  and,  therefore,  the  Trinity  is  true.  The-  con- 
clusion is  a  long  way  from  the  premise,  even  supposing 
that  to  be  sound.  But  as  regards  the  premise :  he  has 
read  and  quoted  Mansell.  Has  he  not  verged  toward 
the  dogmatism  which  that  writer  condemns  ?  Would  it 
not  be  more  modest,  and  better  accord  with  Christian 
humility,  to  be  satisfied  with  believing  the  Scriptural 
assertions,  that  "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave 
his  only-begotten  Son ; "  that  "  He  who  spared  not  his 


80  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

own  Son,  but  gave  him  up  for  us  all,  —  shall  he  not,  with 
him,  freely  give  us  all  things  ?  "  Is  not  this  enough,  with- 
out an  argument  to  prove  that  the  only  way  by  which  a 
man  can  be  saved  is  the  method  of  a  suffering  God  ? 

We  will  not  dwell  further  on  this  head,  nor  examine 
our  friend's  argument  to  show  that  we  cannot  consist- 
ently, as  Unitarians,  have  any  piety.  We  will  try,  then, 
to  have  it  inconsistently. 

VI.  Great  evils  to  the  Church  have  come  from  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

It  has  tended  to  the  belief  in  three  Gods.  It  has 
tended  to  a  confusion  of  belief  between  three  Gods  of 
equal  power  and  majesty,  united  only  in  counsel ;  one 
supreme,  and  two  inferior  Deities ;  one  Deity  with  a 
threefold  manner  of  manifestation ;  and  a  vague,  unde- 
termined use  of  words,  with  no  meaning  attached  to 
them ;  —  unhappy  confusion,  which  none  have  been 
more  ready  to  recognize  and  to  point  out  than  Trinita- 
rians themselves. 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  continual  struggles, 
conflicts,  and  bitter  controversies,  which  this  doctrine 
has  caused  from  the  time  of  its  entrance  into  the 
Church?  What  is  there  more  disgraceful  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church,  than  the  mutual  persecutions  of 
Arians  and  Athanasians,  and  of  all  the  minor  sects  and 
parties,  engendered  by  this  disputed  doctrine  ? 

This  is  what  Dr.  Bushnell  says  of  one  of  these 
matters ;  and  his  testimony  is,  perhaps,  sufficient  on  this 
point :  — 

"  No  man  can  assert  three  persons,  —  meaning  t  iree 
consciousnesses,  wills,  and  understandings,  —  and  still 


FOR    THE    TRINITY.  81 

have  any  intelligent  meaning  in  his  mind,  when  he  as- 
serts that  they  are  yet  one  person ;  for,  as  he  now  uses 
the  term,  the  very  idea  of  a  person  is  that  of  an  essential, 
incommunicable  monad,  bounded  by  consciousness,  and 
vitalized  by  self-active  will :  which  being  true,  he  might 
as  well  profess  to  hold  that  three  units  are  yet  one  unit. 
When  he  does  it,  his  words  will,  of  necessity,  be  only 
substitutes  for  sense. 

"  At  the  same  time,  there  are  too  many  signs  of  the 
mental  confusion  I  speak  of  not  to  believe  that  it  exists. 
Thus,  if  the  class  I  speak  of  were  to  hear  a  discourse 
insisting  on  the  proper  personal  Unity  of  God,  it  would 
awaken  suspicion  in  their  minds,  while  a  discourse  in- 
sisting on  the  existence  of  three  persons  would  be  only 
a  certain  proof  of  Orthodoxy ;  snowing  that  they  pro- 
fess three  persons,  meaning  what  they  profess,  and  one 
person,  really  not  meaning  it. 

"  Such  is  the  confusion  produced  by  attempting  to 
assert  a  real  and  metaphysical  Trinity  of  persons  in  the 
Divine  Nature.  Whether  the  word  is  taken  at  its  full 
import,  or  diminished  away  to  a  mere  something  called 
a  distinction,  there  is  produced  only  contrariety,  con- 
fusion, practical  negation,  not  light/' 

So  far  Dr.  Bushnell.  On  another  point,  thus  testifies 
Twesten :  — 

"  There  are  many,  to  whom  the  Biblical  and  religious 
basis  of  the  doctrine  is  exceeding  sure  and  precious, 
who  are  dissatisfied  with  the  Church  form  of  the  doc- 
trine, and  even  feel  themselves  repelled  or  fettered  by 
it.  It  is  to  them  more  negative  than  positive;  more 
opposed  to  errors,  than  giving  any  insight  into  truth. 
It  solves  no  difficulty  ;  it  unseals  no  new  revelation." 

Twesten  goes  on  to  admit  that  the  Trinity  has  really 
hemmed  in  the  free  movement  of  the  mind,  substituting 
a  dead  uniformity  for  a  manifold  and  various  life ;  and 
yet  Twesten  is  a  very  strong  and  able  Trinitarian. 
6 


82  PROF.  HUNTING-TON'S  ARGUMENT 

VII.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  a  doctrine  of  phi- 
losophy, and  not  of  faith. 

As  philosophy,  it  might  be  ever  so  true  and  important ; 
but  when  brought  forward  as  religion  (as  it  is  by  Prof. 
Huntington),  it  would  become  at  once  pernicious.  To 
offer  theology  for  religion,  belief  for  faith,  philosophy 
born  of  speculative  reflection  in  place  of  spiritual 
insight  and  pious  experience,  have  always  been  most 
deleterious  both  to  religion  and  to  philosophy. 

The  objects  of  faith  are  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Through  Christ,  we  have  access  to  the 
Father,  in  the  Spirit.  We  see  the  Father  revealed  to 
us  in  the  Son ;  we  feel  the  power  of  the  Spirit  in  our 
hearts.  This  is  religion;  but  this  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

VIII.  We  can  trace  the  gradual  formation  of  the 
doctrine  in  the  Christian  Church. 

The  following  facts  we  suppose  to  be  incontroverti- 
ble :— 

1.  Down  to  the  time  of  the  Synod  of  Nice  (A.D.  325) 
the  Son  was  considered  to  be  subordinate,  or  inferior  to 
the  Father,  by  the  great  majority  of  writers  and  teach- 
ers in  the  Christian  Church,  and  by  the  multitude  of 
believers ;  and  no  doctrine  of  Trinity  existed  in  the 
Church. 

2.  The  Nicene  symbol,  which  declared  Christ  to  be 
1  God  from  God,  Light  from  Light,  true  God  from  true 
God,  of  the  same  substance  with  the  Father,"  *  was  di- 

*  See  the  creed  in  Hagenbach  ("  History  of  Dock,"  Vol.  I.  p. 
268)  :  0e6i>  «K  0eov,  (frets  fK  (jxorbs,  Qeov  dXrjdtvov  eVc  Qeov 
a\r)0tvov. 


FOR    THE   TRINITY.  83 

rected  against  the  two  Arian  positions,  —  that  Christ 
was  created,  and  that  there  was  a  time  when  he  did  not 
exist ;  but  it  did  not  declare  his  equality  with  God  the 
Father,  nor  teach  the  personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
nor  say  anything  of  the  Trinity. 

3.  The  councils  vacillated  to  and  fro  during  three  hun- 
dred years,  gradually  tending  toward  the  present  Church 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  thus :  — 

1.  Synod  of  Nice  (A.  D.  325)  opposed  the  Arian  doc- 
trine of  the  creation  of  Christ  out  of  nothing,  and  main- 
tained that  his  substance  was  derived  from  that  of  God. 

2.  Synod  of  Tyre  (A.  D.  335)  favored  the  Arians, 
and  deposed  Athanasius. 

3.  Council  of  Antioch  (A.  D.  343)  opposed  the  views 
of  the  Arians,  and  also  the  views  of  their  opponents. 

4.  Council  of  Sardica  (A.  D.  344)  resulted  in  a  di- 
vision between  the  Eastern   and  Western    Churches; 
the  East  being  semi- Arian,  and  the  West  Athanasian, 
in  their  view  of  the  nature  of  Christ. 

5.  The   Western   Church  tending  to   Sabellianism 
(taught  by  Marcellus  and  his  pupil  Photinus),  this  view 
was  condemned  by  two  councils  in  the  East  and  West ; 
viz. : — 

Second  Council  of  Antioch  (A.  D.  343). 
Council  of  Milan  (A.D.  346). 

6.  Constantius,   an   Arian   emperor,  endeavored  to 
make  the  Western  Churches  accept  the  Arian  doctrine ; 
and,  at  two  synods  (A.  D.  353  and  355,  at  Arelate  and 
Mediolanum),  compelled  the  bishops  to  sign  the  con- 
demnation of  Athanasius,  deposing  those  who  refused  to 
do  so. 

7.  The  Arians,  being  thus  dominant,  immediately  di- 


84  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

vided  into  Arians  and  semi-Arians,  —  the  distinction 
being  the  famous  distinction  between  o  and  oi.  Both 
parties  denied  the  Homoousios ;  but  the  semi-Arians 
admitted  the  Homoiousios. 

8.  At  the  Synod  of  Ancyra  (A.  D.  358),  the  semi- 
Arian  doctrine  was  adopted,  and  the  Arian  rejected. 
The  third  Synod  of  Sirmium  (A.  D.  358)  did  the  same 
thing. 

9.  Down  to  this  time  (A.  D.  360),  nothing  was  said 
about  the  Holy  Spirit  in  its  relation  to  the  Trinity.   The 
Emperor  Valens,  an  Arian,  persecuted  the  Athanasians 
from  A.  D.  364  to  378.     Then  Theodosius,  an  Athana- 
sian  emperor,  persecuted  the  Arians.     Semi-Arianism, 
however,  continued  Orthodox  in  the  East. 

10.  The  Nestorian  controversy  broke  out  A.  D.  430. 
The  Council  of  Ephesus  (A.  D.  431)  condemned  Nestor. 
The  Nestorians  (who  were  Unitarians)  separated  en- 
tirely from  the  Church,  and  became  the  Church  of  the 
Persian  Empire. 

11.  The  Monophysite  controversy  broke  out.     The 
Council  of  Chalcedon  (A.  D.  451)  decided  that  there 
were  two  natures  in  Christ ;  and  the  Monophysites  sep- 
arated, and  formed  the  Coptic  Church.     Their  formula 
was,  that  "  God  was  crucified  in  Christ."     The  Nesto- 
rians were  too  Unitarian,  and  the  Monophysites  too 
Athanasian.     The  Church  decided  (against  the  Nesto- 
rians) that  Mary  was  God's  mother,  but  decided  (against 
the  Monophysites)  that  God  was  not  crucified. 

12.  First  Lateran  Council  was  called  (in  A.  D.  640) 
to  settle  a  new  point.     It  having  been  decided  that  there 
were  two  natures  in  Christ,  it  was  now  thought  best  by 
many  to  yield  to  the  Monophysites,  —  that  there  was 


FOR   THE    TRINITY.  85 

only-  one  will  in  Christ.  Hence  the  Monotheletic  con- 
troversy, finally  settled  at  the,  — 

13.  Sixth  General  Council  (A.  D.  680),  when  two 
wills  in  Christ  were  accepted  as  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church. 

Thus  it  appears  that  it  took  the  Church  from  A.  D. 
325  to  A.  D.  680  to  settle  the  questions  concerning  the 
relation  of  Christ  to  God.  During  all  this  time,  opinion 
vacillated  between  Arianism  on  the  one  hand,  and  Sa- 
bellianism  on  the  other.  At  the  end  of  this  period,  the 
Church  had  become  consolidated,  and  strong  enough  to 
compel  submission  to  its  opinions;  but  the  relation  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  Trinity  remained  unsettled  for 
several  centuries  more ;  and  finally  the  Eastern  Church 
separated  altogether  from  the  "Western  Church  on  this 
point.  The  whole  Greek  Church  remains,  to  this  day, 
separated  from  the  Latin  Church  on  a  question  belong- 
ing to  this  very  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  So  much,  then, 
for  Prof.  Huntington's  assertion,  that  the  Trinity  is  a 
doctrine  which  can  almost  literally  be  said  to  have  been 
believed  "  always,  everywhere,  and  by  all." 

IX.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  opposed  to  the 
real  divinity  of  Christ,  and  to  his  real  humanity ;  thus 
undermining  continually  the  faith  of  the  Church  in  the 
divine  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord. 

Our  final  and  chief  objection  to  the  Trinity  is,  not 
that  it  makes  Christ  divine,  but  that  it  does  not  make 
him  so.  It  substitutes  for  the  divinity  of  the  Father, 
the  Supreme  God,  which  Unitarians  believe  to  dwell  in 
Christ,  a  subordinate  divinity  of  God  the  Son.  This  is 
subordinate,  because  derived ;  and,  because  derived,  de- 


86  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

pendent.  The  Son  may  be  said  to  be  "  eternally  gen- 
erated ; "  but  this  is  only  an  eternal  derivation,  and  does 
not  alter  the  dependence,  but  makes  it  also  to  be  eternal. 
The  tendency  of  the  Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
always  to  a  belief,  not  in  the  Supreme  Divinity  dwelling 
in  Christ,  but  in  a  derived  and  secondary  divinity. 

How  is  it,  for  example,  with  the  Nicene  doctrine  con- 
cerning Christ  ?  Prof.  Huntington  claims  Nice  as  Trin- 
itarian (p.  361). 

But  what  says  Prof.  Stuart  concerning  the  Nicene 
doctrine  ?  Listen :  — 

"  The  Nicene  symbol  presents  the  Father  as  the  Mo- 
nas,  or  proper  Godhead,  in  and  of  himself  exclusively ; 
it  represents  him  as  the  Fons  et  Principium  of  the  Son, 
and  therefore  gives  him  superior  power  and  §lory.  It 
does  not  even  assert  the  claims  of  the  blessed  Spirit  to 
Godhead ;  and  therefore  leaves  room  to  doubt  whether 
it  means  to  recognize  a  Trinity,  or  only  a  Duality." 
(Moses  Stuart,  "Bib.  Repos.,"  1835.  Quoted  by  Wil- 
son, "Trin.  Test.,"  p.  264.) 

And  how  is  it  with  the  ante-Nicene  fathers,  whom 
Prof.  Huntington  also  considers  to  be  Trinitarian,  else 
certainly  his  rule  of  "  always,  everywhere,  and  by  all," 
does  not  hold?  If,  for  the  first  three  hundred  years 
after  Christ,  there  were  no  Trinitarians,  it  cannot  be 
said  that  the  Trinity  has  "always"  been  held  in  the 
Church.  Listen,  again,  to  Prof.  Stuart,  whose  learning 
no  one  can  question :  — 

"  We  find  that  all  the  fathers  before,  at,  and  after  the 
Council  of  Nice,  who  harmonize  with  the  sentiments  there 
avowed,  declare  the  Father  only  to  be  the  self-existent 
God."  (See  the  whole  paragraph  in  Wilson,  "Trin. 
Test,"  p.  267.) 


FOR    THE    TRINITY.  87 

"  To  be  the  author  of  the  proper  substance  of  the  Son 
and  Spirit,  according  to  the  Patristical  creed ;  or  to  be 
the  author  of  the  modus  existendi  of  the  Son  and  Spirit, 
according  to  the  modern  creed,  —  both  seem  to  involve 
the  idea  of  power  and  glory  in  the  Father,  immeasurably 
above  that  of  the  Son  and  Spirit"  (Moses  Stuart,  "Bib. 
Repos.,"  1835.) 

So  Coleridge  asserts  that  "both  Scripture  and  the 
Nicene  Creed  teach  a  subordination  of  the  Son  to  the 

Father,  independent  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Son 

Christ,  speaking  of  himself  as  the  co-eternal  Son,  says, 
'  My  Father  is  greater  than  I.' "  (Wilson,  "  Trin.  Test.," 
p.  270.) 

According  to  the  Trinitarian  doctrine,  then,  we  do 
not  find  God  —  the  Supreme  God,  our  Heavenly  Father 
—  in  Christ;  but  a  derived,  subordinate,  and  inferior 
Deity.  Not  the  one  universal  Parent  do  we  approach, 
but  some  mysterious,  derived,  inscrutable  Deity,  less 
than  the  Father,  and  distinct  from  him.  Do  we  not, 
then,  lose  the  benefit  and  blessing  of  the  divinity  of 
Jesus  ?  Can  we  believe  him  when  he  says,  "  He  who 
has  seen  me  has  seen  the  Father"?  No:  we  do  not 
believe  that,  if  we  are  Trinitarians ;  but  rather,  that, 
having  seen  him,  we  have  seen  "THE  SON;"  whom 
Coleridge  declares  to  be  an  inferior  Deity ;  over  whom, 
Bishop  Pearson,  in  his  "  Exposition  of  the  Creed,"  says, 
the  Father  holds  "pre-eminence,"  —  the  Father  being 
"  the  Origin,  the  Cause,  the  Author,  the  Root,  the  Foun- 
tain, the  Head,  of  the  Son."  The  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity is  therefore  opposed,  as  Swedenborg  ably  contends, 
to  the  real  divinity  of  Christ.* 

*  Thus  speaks  Dr.  Bushnell  on  this  head  ("  God  in  Christ,"  p. 
139):  — 


88  PROF.  HUNTINGTON'S  ARGUMENT 

But  it  is  equally  opposed  to  his  real  humanity.  It 
constantly  drives  out  of  the  Church  the  human  element 
in  Christ.  Prof.  Huntington  is  astonished  at  Unita- 
rians not  perceiving  that  the  humanity  of  Christ  is  as 
dear  to  Trinitarians  as  his  Deity;  yet  it  cannot  be 
denied,  that  the  mysterious  dogma  of  Deity  has  quite 
overshadowed  the  simple  human  life  of  our  dear  Lord, 
so  that  the  Church  has  failed  to  see  the  Son  of  man. 
All  his  highest  human  traits  become  unreal  in  the 
light  of  this  doctrine  of  his  Deity.  He  is  tempted  :  but 
that  is  unreal ;  for  God  cannot  be  tempted.  He  prays, 
"  Our  Father :  "  but  this  also  is  no  real  prayer ;  for  he 
is  omnipotent,  and  can  need  nothing.  He  encounters 
opposition,  hatred,  contumely,  and  bears  it  with  sweet- 
est composure :  but  what  of  that  ?  since,  as  God,  he 
looked  down  from  an  infinite  height  upon  the  puny 
opposition.  He  agonizes  in  the  garden;  but  it  is 
imaginary  suffering ;  how  can  God  feel  any  real  agony 
like  man?  Jesus  ceases  to  be  example,  ceases  to  be 
our  best  beloved  companion  and  brother,  and  becomes 
a  mysterious  personage,  inscrutable  to  our  thought,  and 
far  removed  from  our  -sympathy. 

"Besides,  it  is  another  source  of  mental  confusion,  connected 
with  this  view  of  three  metaphysical  persons,  that,  though  they 
are  all  declared  to  be  infinite  and  equal,  they  really  are  not  so. 
The  proper  deity  of  Christ  is  not  held  in  this  view.  He  is  begot- 
ten, sent,  supported,  directed,  by  the  Father,  in  such  a  sense  as 
really  annihilates  his  Deity.  This  has  been  shown  in  a  truly 
searching  and  convincing  manner  by  Schleiermacher,  in  his  his- 
torical essay  on  the  Trinity;  and,  indeed,  you  will  see  at  a  glance, 
that  this  view  of  a  metaphysical  Trinity  of  persons  breaks  down 
in  the  very  point  which  is  commonly  regarded  as  its  excellence, 
—  its  assertion  of  the  proper  Deity  of  Christ." 


FOR    THE    TRINITY.      '  89 

We  have  gone  somewhat  fully  into  this  discussion, 
which  the  secession  of  a  brother  and  friend  from  our 
ranks  has  roused.  He  has  called  to  us,  with  his  famil- 
iar and  eloquent  voice,  to  follow  him  in  accepting  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  We  can  see  no  good  reason 
for  doing  it.  His  own  example  and  his  evident  sincer- 
ity are  more  moving  arguments  than  his  reasoning. 
We  ask  ourselves,  May  there  not  be  something  for  us, 
too,  in  that  doctrine  in  which  he  seems  to  have  found 
so  much  good?  But  then  we  remember,  that,  while 
he  has  been  struggling  out  of  Unitarianism  into  Trini- 
tarianism,  others  have  been  as  earnestly  and  honestly 
struggling  out  of  Trinitarianism  into  Unitarianism. 
Some  Protestants  turn  Catholics,  and  find  peace  :  some 
Catholics  turn  Protestants,  and  also  find  peace.  We 
have  seen  converts  from  Calvinism  to  Universalism, 
from  Universalism  to  Calvinism, — converts  from  and 
to  a  liberal  theology,  —  all  equally  happy  in  their  new 
faith.  One  conversion  neutralizes  another,  as  evidence 
for  or  against  the  truth  of  a  system. 

And  now,  in  taking  leave  of  our  brother  and  of  this 
discussion,  we  would  reach  out  our  hand  to  him  across 
the  dividing  gulf  of  opinion,  and  say,  "  God  bless  you  ! 
We  stood  near  you  at  your  ordination,  and  sympa- 
thized with  your  emotions  then  in  devoting  yourself  to 
the  service  of  God.  We  have  seen  the  manner  of  your 
life,  —  earnest,  true,  devoted.  We  are  sad  at  this  part- 
ing, but  believe  that  you  are  not  wholly  taken  from  us 
in  heart.  A  few  years,  brother,  and  we  shall  know  all 
which  we  now  see  in  a  glass  darkly.  Meantime,  let  us 
remember  the  words  of  Melancthon  :  '  Hoc  est  Christum 
cognoscere,  beneficia  ejus  cognoscere ;  non,  ut  illi  aiunt, 
modos  incarnationis.' " 


TBINITARIANISM  NOT  THE  DOCTRINE 
OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.* 

BY  HEV.  T.  S.  KING. 


LECTURE    I. 

"  For  though  there  be  that  are  called  gods,  whether  in  heaven  or  in  earth, 
(as  there  be  gods  many  and  lords  many,)  but  to  us  there  is  but  one  God, 
the  Father,  of  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  in  him ;  and  one  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  by  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  by  him.  Howbeit  there  is  not 
in  every  man  that  knowledge."  —  1  Cor.  viii.  5,  6,  7. 

I  SHALL  ask  you  to  consider  with  me,  in  two  lectures, 
the  Scriptural  evidence  for  the  Church  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.  It  will  be  accepted,  I  think,  as  forcible  evi- 
dence that  I  have  no  strong  tendency  to  disputation 
about  this  doctrine  in  which  the  general  faith  of  Christen- 
dom is  moulded,  if  I  say  that,  during  a  ministry  here  of 
more  than  eleven  years,  and  an  experience  of  fifteen 
years  as  a  preacher,  I  have  never  written  a  discourse 
or  lecture,  or  any  portion  of  one,  bearing  directly  upon 
it.  I  have  not  felt,  and  do  not  now  feel,  a  desire  to 
attack,  or  call  in  question,  the  forms  in  which  the  major- 
ity of  Christians  cast,  or  imagine  that  they  cast,  their 

*  Two  Lectures  delivered,  partly  in  Review  of  Rev.  Dr.  Hun- 
tington's  Discourse  on  the  Trinity,  in  the  Hollis  Street  Church, 
January  7  and  14,  1860. 


TRINITARIANISM    NOT    THE    DOCTRINE,    ETC.        91 

faith  concerning  the  constitution  of  the  Infinite  Per- 
sonality. 

It  is  chiefly  by  the  instinct  of  defence  that  I  am 
moved  to  ask  attention  here  on  the  controverted  doc- 
trine. In  common  with  thousands,  I  have  read  recently 
the  elaborate  discourse  by  a  clergyman  long  prominent 
and  honored  in  the  Unitarian  body,  now  Preacher  to 
the  Cambridge  University,  in  which  he  sets  forth,  not 
merely  his  belief  in  that  dogma,  but  his  conviction  that 
it  supplies  the  only  scheme  of  faith  that  will  produce 
a  working  church,  a  sound  piety,  and  even  a  lasting 
and  practical  belief  in  the  personality  of  God.  Fresh 
interest  will  be  excited,  of  course,  in  the  great  subject 
at  issue  between  Trinitarians  and  Unitarians,  by  this 
transit  of  an  eminent  preacher  from  the  minority  to 
the  majority ;  and  we  shall  do  nothing  more  than  pay 
proper  respect  to  the  volume  in  which  our  faith  is  cast 
off  and  arraigned,  as  well  as  to  our  own  system  of 
belief,  if  we  make  serious  inquiry  «into  the  Scriptural 
supports  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

The  clergyman  of  whose  book  I  speak  lays  great 
stress  on  the  fact  that  the  Trinity  is  so  generally  be- 
lieved in  Christendom,  and  has  been  the  faith  of  all 
centuries.  In  all  ages  of  the  Church,  he  says,  "  the 
strong  thinkers"  have  been,  upon  this  point,  "essen- 
tially and  persistently  as  one."  And  he  quotes  the 
names  of  twenty-eight  prominent  theologians,  belonging 
to  different  ages,  countries,  and  sects,  representative 
men,  who  are  divided  by  no  differences  on  this  article 
of  belief.  Yet,  in  looking  at  the  list  attentively,  a  very 
interesting  fact  appears ;  no  name  is  quoted  earlier  than 
the  fourth  Christian  century.  Where  are  the  names  of  the 


92  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

fathers  before  the  year  300,  who  were  sound  upon  this 
dogma  ?  What  great  teacher  or  saint,  during  the  first 
six  generations  after  the  Apostles,  can  be  produced,  who 
is  in  accord  with  any  strict  and  sound  Trinitarian  the- 
ologian of  the  modern  Protestant  Church?  The  evi- 
dence from  general  belief,  from  the  consent  of  thinkers 
in  different  countries  and  divisions  of  the  Church,  how- 
ever even  then  it  would  fail  of  being  conclusive,  would 
be  of  immensely  greater  force  if  we  could  find  the  for- 
mulas of  modern  times  indorsed  and  published  by  the 
teachers  nearest  the  apostolic  age.  But  what  if  that 
evidence  begins  to  grow  faint  as  we  ascend  beyond 
the  year  300  ?  What  if,  above  that  period,  no  the- 
ologian or  preacher  can  be  found  who  has  framed  a 
definition  of  the  Trinity  which  would  be  called  safe  by 
any  ordinary  council  in  this  country  ? 

Now  this  is  the  fact.  Of  the  twenty-eight  theologians 
whom  Dr.  Huntington  quotes,  the  two  most  learned 
ones  in  the  English  branch  of  the  Church  are  Dr. 
Cudworth  and  Bishop  Bull.  Yet  Dr.  Cudworth  affirms 
that  the  Christian  fathers  of  the  first  three  centuries 
plainly  taught  the  subordination  of  Christ  to  the  Father, 
and  did  not  believe  in  any  such  coequality  as  would 
exclude  inferiority  and  dependence.  And  Bishop  Bull, 
who  has  written  the  most  able  defence  ever  made  by  an 
Englishman  of  the  Trinitarian  dogma,  though  holding 
the  theory  of  subordination,  declares  that  almost  all  the 
Christian  "  writers  before  Arius's  time  (320)  seem  not 
to  have  known  anything  of  the  invisibility  and  immen- 
sity of  the  Son  of  God ;  and  that  they  often  speak  of 
him  in  such  a  manner  as  if,  even  in  respect  of  his  di- 
vine nature,  he  was  finite,  visible,  and  circumscribed  in 


OF   THE    NEW    TESTAMENT.  93 

place."  *  Petavius,  too,  a  Jesuit,  proves  by  a  thorough 
discussion  of  the  subject,  that  the  great  Christian  writers 
of  the  first  three  centuries  believed  that  the  Supreme 
God  brought  the  Son  into  existence  to  employ  him  as 
his  instrument  in  the  formation  of  the  world.  And 
Petavius  accuses  them  of  entertaining  thus  opinions 

*  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  earlier  fathers  of  the  Church 
taught  the  system  which  usually  goes  by  the  name  of  Unitarian- 
ism.  It  would  be  unjust  and  foolish  to  conceal  the  fact  that  their 
scheme  of  thought  was  very  different,  —  almost  as  distant  from 
Unitarianism  as  it  is  from  Calvinistic  Orthodoxy.  Nor  can  any 
one  deny  that  after  the  year  200  there  was  a  steady  tendency 
towards  such  formulae  as  were  voted  by  the  Councils  of  Nicsea 
and  Constantinople.  But  I  do  not  understand  how  anybody  can 
read  the  full  collection  of  the  evidence  by  men  hostile  to  Unita- 
rianism,—  by  Petavius,  Burton,  Dorner,  Bunsen, — and  claim 
that  the  Christian  writers  before  the  time  of  Origen  held  any 
scheme  of  the  Divine  Personality  that  is  in  harmony  with  the 
popular  Trinitarianism  of  to-day. 

Dorner  acknowledges  that  Origen  (who  died  A.  D.  254)  was 
the  first  who  tried  to  solve  the  contradictions  of  his  predecessors 
as  to  the  substance  and  rank  of  the  Son,  and  to  put  the  doctrine 
of  the  Logos  in  a  shape  that  would  harmonize  with  Trinitarian- 
ism.  To  Origen  we  owe  the  dogma  of  the  eternally  proceeding 
generation  of  the  Son  from  the  Father.  Yet  how  far  Origen  was 
from  holding  the  Trinitarianism  of  to-day,  may  be  seen  when  we 
quote  his  declaration  that  "  Prayer,  properly  speaking,  is  to  be 
offered  to  the  Father  only.  We  first  bring  our  prayers  to  the 
only  Son  of  God,  the  First-born  of  the  whole  creation,  the  Logos 
of  God,  and  pray  to  him,  and  request  him,  as  a  High  Priest,  to 
offer  up  the  prayers  which  reach  him,  to  the  God  over  all,  to  his 
God  and  our  God."  He  declares,  also  that  "the  Holy  Spirit 
was  made  by  the  Logos,  the  Logos  being  older  than  the  Spirit." 
No  wonder  that  Prof.  Burton  calls  this  "  an  unfortunate  passage ! " 
Still  further,  he  states  his  belief  that  "  the  power  of  the  Father  is 
greater  than  that  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  That  of  the 


94  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE    DOCTRINE 

unworthy  of  the  dignity  of  the  Son,  and  altogether 
absurd.  Still  another  Trinitarian  scholar,  M.  Jurieu, 
a  learned  French  Calvinist,  maintains  the  position  that 
the  teachers  of  the  first  three  centuries  held  the  in- 
equality of  the  Son  with  the  Father,  and  his  birth  in 
time,  and  asserts  that  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity  re- 
mained without  its  right  form  or  shape  until  the  Council 

Son  is  greater  than  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  again  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  surpasses  that  of  all  other  holy  things." 

We  might  quote  a  chain  of  passages  from  Clement  of  Rome, 
who  touches  the  lifetime  of  St.  Paul,  to  Lactantius,  A.  D.  310, 
to  prove  that  not  one  of  the  fathers  within  these  dates  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  Orthodox  Trinitarianism  of  modern  times, 
which  claims  to  be  the  faith  "  once  delivered  to  the  saints."  But 
it  might,  perhaps,  be  said  or  thought  that  we  did  not  fairly  repre- 
sent the  faith  of  those  early  centuries  by  the  extracts.  It  may 
be  accounted  of  more  value  if  we  qujote  the  testimony  of  Bunsen, 
whose  learning  will  not  be  questioned,  and  who  will  not  be 
suspected  of  partiality  for  Unitarian  conceptions  of  Christianity. 
In  the  first  volume  of  his  great  work,  "  Christianity  and  Man- 
kind," the  history  of  the  Church  is  rapidly  sketched  in  outlines 
of  the  thought  of  the  chief  theologians  to  the  close  of  the  seventh 
generation  from  the  Crucifixion.  And  he  tells  us  that  "  the 
doctrinal  system  of  the  Ante-Nicene  Church  is  irreconcilable  with 
the  letter  and  authority  of  the  formularies  of  the  Constantinian 
and  in  general  of  the  Byzantine  councils,  as  much  as  these  are 
with  the  Bible  and  common  sense"  (Preface,  p.  19.)  The  problem 
of  the  divine  nature,  he  affirms,  was  solved  "  illogically  and 
unhistorically  "  by  the  councils  of  the  fourth  century.  "  The  latter 
view  having  triumphed  by  a  persecuting  and  often  unscrupulous 
majority,  the  victorious  hierarchical  party  canonized,  in  the  course 
of  the  two  next  blood-stained  centuries,  the  confession  of  its  in- 
tellectual bankruptcy  into  a  confession  of  faith,  and  made  sub- 
mission to  it  the  condition  of  churchmanship  and  the  badge  of 
eternal  salvation."  (Page  81.)  Again,  "if  one  reads  all  that 
the  old  Protestant  schools  have  said  on  it  (the  first  verse  of 


OF    THE    NEW    TESTAMENT.  95 

of  Constantinople,  in  381.  (See  Emlyn's  Tracts,  Vol. 
II.  pp.  277  et  seq.) 

Now,  of  what  importance  is  the  concurrent  belief  of 
the  great  branches  of  the  Christian  Church  in  a  doctrine 
which  begins  to  fade  just  as  we  approach  the  centuries 
when  the  tradition  must  have  been  purest,  —  if  it  is  only 
after  Christianity  was  "improved  and  beautified  by 

John's  Gospel)  during  these  250  years,  there  is  scarcely  any- 
thing, philosophically  speaking,  but  chaff  to  be  found  in  it.  The 
text  ('the  word  was  God')  is  explained  by  theological  terms 
and  formularies,  which  at  least  must  be  taken  to  be  conventional, 
till  they  are  shown  to  be  the  necessary  and  only  possible  deduc- 
tions from  the  sacred  text.  Now  this  has  never  been  proved; 
and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  no  honest  and  intelligent 
criticism  can  prove  them  to  be  sufficiently  warranted,  Biblically 
or  philosophically,  for  exclusive  acceptance ;  nor  are  they  strictly 
reconcilable  with  the  true,  genuine,  uninterpolated  writings  of 
the  fathers  of  the  first,  second,  and  third  centuries.  I  speak  ad- 
visedly ;  for  I  have  read  these  writings  with  a  sincere  desire  to 
understand  and  appreciate  them ;  and  in  judging  them  I  use 
nothing  but  the  liberty,  or  rather  I  exercise  the  duty,  of  a  Prot- 
estant Christian,  searching  for  truth."  (Page  408.)  Once  more  : 
"The  theological  system  built  up  since  (the  time  of  Origen)  is 
conventional ;  it  is  based  upon  misinterpretation  and  upon  coun- 
cil formularies,  which  were  a  wall  between  the  theologian  and 
Scripture  as  well  as  reason.  These  formularies  of  the  fourth, 
fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  centuries  are  the  confession  of  a  failure, 
and  have  made  the  most  sublime  part  of  our  theology  conven- 
tional and  hollow."  (Page  307.) 

Professor  Huntington  is  as  unfortunate,  also,  in  claiming  a  per- 
sistent unity  among  those  who  have  defended  the  Trinity  since 
the  fourth  century,  as  in  appealing  to  the  universal  voice  of  the 
Church  in  its  behalf.  There  are,  and  have  always  been,  differ- 
ences as  marked  between  defenders  of  the  Trinity  in  their  con- 
ceptions of  that  dogma,  as  any  that  separate  Trinitarians  from 
Unitarians. 


96  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE    DOCTRINE 

synods  and  councils  "  that  the  chorus  commences  ?  The 
fact  is,  the  only  creed  known  to  the  first  three  centuries 
was  this :  "  I  believe  in  One  God,  the  Father  Almighty, 
maker  of  heaven  and  earth ;  and  in  Jesus  Christ, 
his  only  Son  our  Lord,  who  was  conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered  under  Pontius 
Pilate,  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried :  he  descended 
into  hell ;  the  third  day  he  rose  again  from  the  dead ; 
he  ascended  into  heaven,  and  sitteth  on  the  right  hand 
of  God,  the  Father  Almighty ;  from  thence  he  shall 
come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead.  I  believe  in  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  the  Holy  Catholic  Church ;  the  commun- 
ion of  saints ;  the  forgiveness  of  sins ;  the  resurrection 
of  the  body ;  and  the  life  everlasting.  Amen."  Not  a 
word  here  of  the  Triune  Deity,  of  the  constitution  of  the 
Divine  Personality,  of  coequal  constituents  in  the  In- 
finite Oneness ;  not  a  word  of  any  feature  of  that  clear 
Trinitarian  scheme  of  thought,  with  its  adjuncts  and 
corollaries,  in  which  alone  Dr.  Huntington  sees  "  the  sub- 
lime working-scheme  of  revelation  and  redemption,"  and 
which  he  says  has  been  so  widely  believed,  that  it  is 
"  irreverent  towards  Providence  "  to  suppose  that  it  is 
"  unfounded  in  revelation  and  truth." 

All  this,  of  course,  is  of  trifling  consequence,  com- 
pared with  the  testimony  of  the  New  Testament.  Here 
the  question  must  be  brought  for  settlement,  whatever 
the  teaching  of  the  Church  up  to  the  year  100  may  be. 
But  it  is  right  to  sift  all  sweeping  statements  about  the 
unanimous  voice  of  the  Church  in  favor  of  modern  Trin- 
itarianism  ;  for  they  are  not  true.  The  last  fifteen  hun- 
dred years  are  of  immeasurably  less  consequence  than 
the  first  three  hundred.  And  it  was  not  until  the  year 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  97 

325  that  a  creed  was  formed,  affirming  the  eternity  of 
Christ;  while  no  creed  establishing  the  proper  Deity  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  was  voted  until  A.  D.  381.  There  were 
most  strenuous  and  bitter  struggles  and  contests  against 
these  dogmas.  And  yet  neither  of  these  creeds  con- 
tains any  such  statement  as  that  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  or  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  constitute 
numerically  but  one  tGod.  This  declaration  was  re- 
served for  a  still  later  period,  during  the  settling  shad- 
ows of  the  Middle  Age. 

Let  us  come  then  to  the  testimony  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Do  the  documents  that  constitute  the  New 
Testament  reveal  a  Trinity  of  coequal  persons,  emerg- 
ing from  the  ineffable  and  veiled  Godhead,  so  that  we 
can  know  of  no  Deity  independent  of  that  threefold  dis- 
tinction? This  is  the  doctrine  which  is  emphatically 
stated  to  us  in  the  volume  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded,  as  the  basis  of  the  Christian  religion  and 
revelation.  Now  let  us  take  notice  that  the  question 
is  not  concerning  the  mystical  nature,  or  even  the 
Divinity,  of  Christ.  The  question  is  not  whether  the 
New  Testament  reveals  the  pre-existence,  the  miracu- 
lous birth,  the  superhuman  and  even  superangelic  rank 
of  Jesus ;  nor  whether  it  declares  to  us  that  the  Divine 
quickening  and  grace  have  been  poured  into  humanity 
through  a  nature  interpenetrated  and  transfused  with 
the  Divine  essence,  so  that  he  was  the  image  of  God,  and 
poured  out  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  the  world. 

We  allow  points  to  be  confused,  too  often,  in  con- 
ducting this  inquiry,  which  ought  rigidly  to  be  kept 
separate.  Proofs  are  often  passed  to  the  credit  of  the 
7 


98  TRINITARIANISH   NOT    THE    DOCTRINE 

Trinitarian  formulae,  which  weigh  only  in  behalf  of  the 
super-earthly  origin  and  rank  of  Jesus.  I  freely  admit 
that  no  one  can  fairly  read  some  of  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  deny  that  they  teach  the  suprem- 
acy of  Christ  in  the  hierarchy  of  created  natures,  and 
the  dependence  of  the  world  upon  his  voluntary  as- 
sumption of  human  nature  for  its  spiritual  life.  But  the 
passages  that  establish  this  viejr  are  not  pertinent,  let 
us  remember,  as  proof  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine.  It 
is  a  very  delicate  and  very  difficult  matter  to  shape  a 
statement  of  the  origin,  rank,  and  work  of  Christ  which 
shall  harmonize  all  that  the  New  Testament  books 
present  to  us  concerning  his  pre-existence,  his  birth, 
his  relation  to  the  Infinite  Spirit  when  here,  his  exalta- 
tion, and  his  position  in  the  conscious  universe  through- 
out eternity. 

If  ordinary  Unitarianism  has  not  fairly  interpreted 
and  fully  reproduced  the  predominant  Scriptural  doc- 
trine on  this  point,  let  it  be  impeached  by  any  sect  or 
theologian  who  is  willing  to  stand  by  those  documents, 
disconnected  from  any  other  creed,  and  without  addi- 
tions from  Church  history.  But  let  us  see  to  it  that 
lines  of  evidence  are  not  crossed,  and  that  proofs  are 
not  carried  over  to  one  doctrine  which  can  be  rightfully 
summoned  only  for  another. 

The  simple  point  is  this  :  Does  the  New  Testament 
clearly  reveal  the  Tri-personality  or  Threeness  of  the 
Godhead,  so  that,  as  Christians,  our  idea  of  the  Unity  of 
God  must  be  composed  of  three  constituents  ?  and  do 
Christ  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  coequal  in  dignity,  person- 
ality, eternity,  and  infinity,  form  two  of  those  constitu- 
ents? Is  this  conception  of  the  Godhead  the  core  of 


OP   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  99 

the  Christian  faith,  as  we  gather  it  from  the  New 
Testament,  so  that  we  may  call  it "  the  sublime  working- 
scheme  of  Revelation  "  ? 

If  it  is,  of  course  one  thing  is  certain :  we  shall  find 
it  distinctly  asserted,  in  the  pages  that  bear  the  first  im- 
press of  the  organic  thought  of  the  Church.  It  should 
be  in  their  warp.  Revelation,  certainly,  will  not  at- 
tempt to  work  independent  of  its  u  working-scheme." 

And  let  us  look  first  at  the  three  earliest  Gospels,  — 
Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke.  In  all  the  teaching  of 
Christ  throughout  their  pages,  do  we  find  any  declara- 
tion of  a  threefoldness  in  the  Divine  personality  or 
essence  ?  Not  a  word.  The  Jews  were  Unitarians. 
They  needed  the  disclosure  of  the  Trinity  in  positive 
and  explicit  speech,  if  they  were  to  be  drawn  at  all  to 
belief  in  it ;  and  yet,  throughout  all  the  conversations 
of  Jesus  up  to  the  Crucifixion,  as  recorded  in  the  first 
three  Evangelists,  no  hint  is  given  of  any  doctrine  other 
than  the  old  Hebrew  faith  in  the  absolute  oneness  of 
the  First  Cause.  The  Trinitarian  formula  is  not  men- 
tioned. The  highest  doctrine  which  Christ  announces 
is  his  Sonship,  —  that  he  is  the  Anointed,  the  Son  of 
the  living  God.  Now,  whatever  this  means,  it  is  never 
for  a  moment  connected  with  any  claim  of  equality  with 
the  Father,  or  any  recognition  of  other  than  constant 
spiritual  dependence ;  nay,  it  is  not  even  connected  with 
any  statement  of  his  pre-existence. 

Not  only  does  Jesus,  in  these  biographies,  aflirm  and 
imply  by  his  teaching  and  his  whole  spiritual  attitude 
the  doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  God  as  the  Jews  had  always 
conceived  it ;  not  only  does  he  declare  that  "  there  is 
none  good  but  one,  that  is  God,"  and  give  a  model  of 


I 

100         TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE   DOCTRINE 

prayer,  which  recognizes  no  second  object,  or  even  me- 
dium of  worship  ;  not  only  does  he  conceal  from  his  dis- 
ciples the  mystery  of  a  union  of  two  natures  in  his  own 
personality,  and  struggle  and  pray  in  Gethsemane",  as 
though  he  needed  strength  from  the  Father,  and  not 
from  an  equal  Deity  veiled  within  his  own  form ;  but 
he  expressly  declares  that  his  knowledge  is  limited. 
"  Of  that  day  and  that  hour  knoweth  no  man ;  no,  not 
the  angels  which  are  in  heaven ;  neither  the  Son,  but 
the  Father."  One  would  think  that  it  would  be  difficult 
to  bring  such  a  passage  into  fellowship  with  the  require- 
ments of  the  Trinitarian  definition.  Dr.  Huntington 
puts  it  to  an  entirely  original  use.  He  tells  us :  "  For 
him  who  has  all  power  in  heaven  and  earth  to  say,  *  Of 
that  day  and  hour  knoweth  not  the  Son/  is  condescen- 
sion indeed!  It  brings  God  near  as  in  his  unabated 
attributes  he  could  not  be  broughj;."  "  Condescension  !  " 
But  is  it  true  ?  Must  not  the  Son,  who  is  "  rooted  for- 
ever in  the  Godhead,"  be  omniscient  ?  And  if  so,  could 
Christ  honestly  say  that  the  Son,  whom  he  discriminates 
from  man,  and  from  angels,  is  ignorant  of  a  date  in  the 
future  spiritual  history  of  man  ? 

This  strange  silence  of  the  first  three  Evangelists  as 
to  Christ's  Deity,  or  a  Trinity,  did  not  fail  to  attract 
the  notice  of  the  earliest  Church  fathers  after  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  was  established.  Chrysostom,  the 
eloquent  preacher  of  the  year  400,  did  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  did  not  compre- 
hend the  depth  of  the  Gospel.  They  were  "  like  little 
children,  who  hear,  but  do  not  understand  what  they 
hear,  being  occupied  with  cakes  and  childish  play- 
things." It  was  John,  he  said,  who  taught  "  what  the 


OF   THE   NEW    TESTAMENT.  101 

angels  themselves  did  not  know  before  he  declared  it." 
The  doctrine  of  the  proper  divinity  of  Christ,  he  main- 
tained, was  not  published  at  first,  "  because  the  world 
was  not  advanced  to  it.  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke 
did  not  state  what  was  suitable  to  Christ's  dignity,  but 
what  was  fitting  for  their  hearers."  And  several  of  the 
other  fathers  declared  that  the  proper  divinity  of  Christ 
was  thus  concealed  through  his  personal  ministry,  in 
order  to  elude  the  vigilance  and  hostility  of  Satan. 
They  generally  maintained  that  it  was  John  to  whom 
was  committed  the  unfolding  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus. 

And  to-day  the  principal  quotations  against  Unita- 
rianism  drawn  from  the  Gospels  are  selected  from  that 
of  John.  Yet  where  is  there  a  statement  of  the  Trin- 
ity —  that  there  are  three  coequal  persons  in  the  God- 
head —  to  be  found  in  it  ?  Is  it  in  the  first  chapter, 
among  those  vast  vague  verses,  that  tell  us  "in  the 
beginning  was  the  word,  and  the  word  was  with  God, 
and  the  word  was  God  ?  "  But  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not 
mentioned  there.  Those  verses,  if  they  are  obscure  as 
to  their  positive  philosophical  contents,  are  plain  enough 
as  to  what  they  exclude.  And  if  they  were  written  to 
unfold  or  suggest  to  us  the  mystery  of  the  Divine  na- 
ture, the  Trinity  must  be  dropped  as  an  Evangelical 
doctrine,  for  the  third  personality  is  not  even  hinted. 

But  we  shall  be  referred,  perhaps,  to  the  conversa- 
tion in  the  14th,  15th,  and  16th  chapters,  where  Jesus 
promises  his  disciples  to  send  the  Comforter,  the  Spirit 
of  Truth,  by  which  their  minds  shall  be  enlightened, 
and  he  shall  be  glorified,  after  his  crucifixion.  But  is 
there  any  allusion  in  those  chapters  to  the  Comforter 
as  a  portion  of  a  threefold  Divine  Essence,  of  which 
Jesus  himself  was  another  portion  ? 


102  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE    DOCTRINE 

Nay,  grant  that  a  separate  personality  and  divine 
rank  must  be  ascribed  to  the  Comforter,  are  we  not 
forbidden  to  imagine  that  an  infinite  Tripersonality  is 
to  be  discerned  in  those  chapters,  by  the  very  terms  in 
which  the  office  of  the  Comforter  is  outlined  ?  "  He 
shall  not  speak  of  himself;  but  whatsoever  he  shall 

hear,  that  shall  he  speak ; he  shall  receive  of 

mine,  and  shall  shew  it  unto  you."  Is  this  a  revelation 
of  a  person  coequal  with  the  Father  in  the  Godhead  ? 
Perhaps  Dr.  Huntington  will  listen  more  attentively  to 
a  voice  urging  this  argument  from  the  ancient  Church. 
Novatian,  an  ante-Nicene  father,  quotes  this  same  pas- 
sage, and  says :  "  If  he  received  of  Christ  the  things 
which  he  declared,  Christ  is  then  greater  than  the 
Comforter ;  for  he  would  not  receive  from  Christ,  un- 
less he  were  less  than  Christ."  In  another  passage  of 
this  discourse,  Dr.  Huntington,  speaking  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  says :  "  If  he  is  personal,  no  considerable  number 
of  men  have  ever  been  found  to  question  that  he  is 
God,  nor  to  hesitate  at  the  Tri-unity."  We  cannot  un- 
derstand the  logic,  even  if  the  fact  of  the  separate  per- 
sonality be  demonstrated.  Indeed,  the  writer  above 
quoted,  and  the  "  considerable  number  of  men,"  in  the 
first  six  generations  after  the  Apostles,  who  believed  in 
the  separate  personality  of  the  Spirit,  never  heard  of 
such  an  hypothesis  as  Tri-unity. 

Moreover,  if  the  four  chapters  in  John,  of  which  we 
are  speaking,  reveal  that  doctrine,  it  was  the  first  time 
that  Jesus  had  unfolded  it  to  his  personal  followers.  It 
must,  therefore,  have  stood  out  pre-eminent  over  all 
other  addresses  and  interviews  in  their  minds  and 
memory.  Is  it  not  strange,  therefore,  if  that  was  the 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  103 

truth  they  derived  from  it,  that  none  of  the  other 
Evangelists  has  reported  it,  or  any  fragment  from  it  ? 
Surely,  whatever  else  they  might  have  left  unrecorded, 
they  would  not  have  omitted  that,  —  surely  it  would 
not  have  been  left  to  a  single  reporter  of  the  conver- 
sation of  Jesus  to  save  the  basis  doctrine,  the  very 
"  working-scheme  "  of  revelation  for  the  world. 

The  Gospel  of  John  abounds,  equally  with  the 
others,  in  expressions  of  the  dependence  and  inferiority 
of  Christ.  The  strongest  language  in  it,  used  by  Jesus 
himself,  which  is  in  harmony,  at  any  point,  with  the 
Trinitarian  doctrine,  is  in  the  verses,  "  He  that  hath 
seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  and  "  I  and  my  Father 
are  one."  Yet  if  the  other  equally  strong  language, 
"My  Father  is  greater  than  I,"  "The  Son  can  do 
nothing  of  himself,"  "  As  the  Father  hath  life  in  him- 
self, so  hath  he  given  to  the  Son  to  have  life  in 
himself,"  were  not  sufficient  to  check  the  Trinitarian 
inference,  another  passage  is  conclusive,  by  showing 
in  what  sense  Jesus  used  that  mystic  form  of  speech. 
He  prays  for  all  that  believe  on  him,  "  that  they  all 
may  be  one  ;  as  thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee, 

that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us : I  in  them, 

and  thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one." 
Is  not  this  just  as  strong  an  argument  for  the  lifting  of 
believers  into  participation  in  the  Godhead,  as  the  other 
verse  is  for  lifting  Christ  to  that  awful  height  ? 

Let  me  say,  however,  that  I  do  not  believe  the  Gos- 
pel of  John  teaches  the  mere  humanity  of  Christ.  I 
admit  that  many  Unitarian  interpreters  have  put  a 
forced  construction  upon  much  of  its  affirmation,  to 

make   it   accord   with   the   lowest   form   of  Unitarian 

\ 


104  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE    DOCTRINE 

belief.  To  me  it  declares  plainly  the  pre-existence 
of  Christ  as  a  super-mortal  nature,  dearly  beloved  of 
God,  made  of  the  Divine  substance,  who  came  to  de- 
clare God  and  reflect  him,  as  it  were,  in  a  darkened 
world,  and  to  infuse  the  divine  spirit  and  love  by  a  life 
of  obedience  and  sacrifice  in  the  world,  as  the  organic 
centre  of  a  sanctified  society  on  earth. 

But  how  different  is  this  from  the  Trinitarian  doc- 
trine, which  is  never  stated  in  the  whole  of  John's  Gos- 
pel, or  even  from  the  conception  of  the  proper  Deity  of 
Christ.  Dr.  Huntington  tells  us,  in  one  of  the  most 
surprising  statements  of  his  volume,  that  if  we  believe 
on  the  authority  of  John's  Gospel  that  Christ  "  came 
forth"  from  the  Father,  "came  down,"  "left  the  glory 
he  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was,"  ac- 
knowledging thus  a  personal  pre-existence,  we  must 
see  that  the  passages  "establish  a  proper  Divinity." 
(He  means  Deity.)  He  tells  us  that  there  is  no  mid- 
dle ground.  It  is  just  this  kind  of  hasty  and  indiscrim- 
inate assertion  that  has  been  the  bane  and  disgrace  of 
Scriptural  interpretation.  Instead  of  striving  by  patient 
and  exhaustive  study  of  the  facts  of  a  book  to  see  what 
its  theory  really  is,  theologians  have  often  narrowed  a 
controversy,  or  an  interpretation,  to  one  of  two  hypoth- 
eses, not  stopping  to  conjecture  whether,  by  refrain- 
ing from  hypotheses  and  looking  steadily  at  the  facts, 
the  Biblical  doctrine  might  not  turn  out  different  from 
any  of  the  moulds  of  their  fancy  or  pre-judgmenL  I 
do  not  believe  that  there  is  a  single  sect  which  to-day 
reproduces  fairly  the  prominent  points  of  the  apostolic 
theology,  and  the  conception  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  or 
that  even  thoroughly  understands  it,  —  and  simply  for 


OF    THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  105 

the  reason  that  interpretation  begins  with  one  of  two 
theories  in  view,  theories  which  have  grown  up  since 
the  apostolic  time,  and  were  not  dreamed  of  then.  Any 
man  who  wishes  to  restore  in  his  own  faith  or  preach- 
ing the  scheme  of  Christology  in  St.  John's  Gospel, 
must  abandon  the  Trinitarian  conception,  and  the  equal 
deity  of  God  the  Son ;  drop  all  such  notions  as  that 
Christ  must  be  God  if  he  is  not  merely  man  ;  and  gain 
a  view  of  him  as  the  imparting  agent  of  the  Divine  life 
from  God  to  man,  and  to  that  end  leaving  a  native 
glory  and  joy,  in  which  he  was  the  dearest  but  de- 
pendent object  of  Infinite  affection.  That  Gospel  is 
equally  opposed  to  the  humanitarian  and  Trinitarian 
theory. 

But  before  we  pass  from  the  testimony  offered  by  the 
four  biographies,  we  must  not  overlook  the  passage  at 
the  close  of  Matthew,  which  is  regarded  as  a  very  strong 
support,  if  not  the  corner-stone,  of  the  New  Testament 
evidence  of  the  Trinity.  I  mean  the  command  of  Jesus : 
"  Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them 
in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."  Dr.  Huntington  lays  great  stress  on  this 
passage.  It  is  the  text  of  his  discourse.  Jesus  uttered 
it  just  as  he  was  passing  from  the  world,  to  his  Apostles, 
and  in  it  he  gave  the  substance  and  sum  of  his  religion. 
"That  central  and  sublime  verity,"  we  are  told,  "on 
which  the  whole  matter  of  the  Gospel  rested,  was  to  be 
condensed  into  a  brief,  comprehensive,  significant  sen- 
tence." "  Our  faith  is  summoned  to  the  three  persons 
of  the  one  God."  "  There  is  nothing  in  the  situation, 
the  relation,  or  the  contents  of  the  Divine  formula,  to 


106  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

suggest  that  either  of  the  three  is  less  than  the  others, 
or  less  than  God." 

But  now  read  that  formula  in  the  light  of  these  state- 
ments. Does  it  state  that  such  is  the  constitution  of  the 
Godhead  ?  Does  it  say  that  these  are  three  personali- 
ties, included  in  or  issuing  from  the  Infinite  substance, 
making  it  three  to  human  thought,  and  yet  only  one  nu- 
merically and  in  essence  ?  It  says  nothing  of  the  kind. 
It  does  not  imply  or  hint  any  doctrine  of  the  absolute  per- 
sonality. It  does  not  commission  the  Apostles  to  bap- 
tize, as  Dr.  Huntington  asserts,  "  in  the  Triune  name." 
It  offers  a  formula  which  suggests  the  great  forces  of 
the  Christian  religion,  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Son- 
ship  of  Christ,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  is  silent 
as  to  explanations.  Will  any  Trinitarian  scholar  say, 
that,  hearing  those  words  uttered  for  the  first  time,  he 
could  attribute  no  other  meaning  to  them  than  a  decla- 
ration of  the  mysterious  threefoldness  or  tripersonality  of 
one  God  ?  They  may  mean  any  one  of  a  score  of  con- 
ceptions, and  what  particular  meaning  they  bear  must 
be  determined,  the  first  time  we  hear  them,  by  the  gen- 
eral system  of  thought  of  the  person  from  whom  they 
are  published. 

Now  this  is  the  first  time  that  such  a  formula  appears 
in  the  teaching  of  Christ.  It  is  the  only  time  it  occurs 
in  the  whole  New  Testament ;  and  are  we  to  fasten  at 
once  upon  a  significance  developed  four  hundred  years 
afterwards,  and  say  that  is  the  only  sense  it  can  possibly 
bear?  It  has  been  asserted  that  this  must  represent 
the  Godhead,  because  baptism  would  not  be  offered  in 
any  other  name  than  the  Highest.  But  the  Jews  were 
baptized  into  Moses,  and  the  Samaritans  were  baptized 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  107 

into  Mount  Gerizira.  Some  have  asked  this  question : 
Would  Christ,  if  he  is  not  God,  —  if  he  is  only  a  man, 
—  have  associated  himself  with  God  in  such  a  solemn 
phrase  and  symbol  ?  But  suppose  that  he  is  far  more 
than  man,  though  entirely  subordinate  to  God,  and  is 
the  channel  through  which  the  Infinite  character  and 
grace  are  published  on  the  earth.  Then  is  it  surprising 
that  his  name  should  be  interwoven  with  the  paternal 
name  and  the  quickening  spirit  in  a  formula  of  baptism 
into  his  religion  and  Church  ?  Paul  says,  "  I  charge  thee 
before  God,  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  elect 
angels,  that  thou  observe  these  things ! "  Here  created 
natures  are  put  in  fellowship  with  the  Almighty  in  a 
religious  statement.  The  Apostles  say  in  one  of  their 
letters  missive,  in  -the  Book  of  Acts,  "  It  seemed  good  to 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  us"  What  do  we  say  to  this 
intertwining  of  Divine  and  mortal  judgment  in  one 
phrase  ?  Paul  says,  "  In  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  when  ye  are  gathered  together,  and  my  spirit." 
Did  lie  make  himself  equal  to  Christ  ?  The  salutation 
in  the  book  of  Revelation  is,  "  Grace  be  unto  you,  and 
peace,  from  Him  which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is 
to  come ;  and  from  the  seven  spirits  which  are  before  his 
throne  ;  and  from  Jesus  Christ."  Are  the  seven  spirits 
part  of  the  Infinite  Personality  ? 

It  has  been  a  favorite  position  with  those  who  have 
gone  deeply  into  the  argument  for  the  support  of  the 
Trinity,  that  Christ  reserved  the  doctrine  during  his  ear- 
lier ministry.  His  hearers  and  his  intimate  disciples,  it 
has  been  said,  could  not  have  borne  the  splendor  and  the 
terror  of  the  truth  that  the  Incarnate  God,  the  second 
member  of  the  Infinite  Three,  was  in  familiar  converse 


108  TRINITARIANiSM   NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

with  them,  instructing  their  ignorance,  healing  their  sick, 
reclining  at  their  tables,  taking  their  little  children  in 
his  arms.  In  order  to  give  his  religion  the  opportunity 
to  mingle  itself  naturally  with  the  feeling  and  thought 
of  Palestine,  Christ,  it  is  affirmed,  was  obliged  to  veil 
his  glory  till  the  close  of  his  earthly  manifestation,  and 
therefore  it  is,  we  are  told,  that  throughout  the  bulk  of 
Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke,  so  little  appears  that  seems 
to  be  in  harmony  with  the  proper  Deity  of  Christ,  or 
with  the  Trinity. 

If  this  is  so,  of  course  the  revelation  will  be  the  more 
potent  and  dazzling,  when  it  is  made.  The  contrast 
will  be  the  greater  on  account  of  the  former  darkness ; 
and  we  shall  surely  find  all  the  Evangelists  in  agreement 
as  to  the  time  and  form  of  the  stupendous  announcement, 
—  the  falling  of  the  veil  that  had  screened  the  Infinite 
from  their  gaze.  We  shall  find  unmistakable  traces  in 
the  sacred  books  of  the  date  and  method  of  that  dis- 
closure. 

Some  have  supposed  that  Jesus  made  it  at  the  Last 
Supper,  on  the  institution  of  the  communion  rite,  in  the 
conversation  about  the  Comforter  and  the  prayer  that 
followed,  as  related  in  the  14th,  15th,  16th,  and  17th 
chapters  of  John.  But  strangely  not  a  word  of  that 
discourse  or  prayer  is  narrated  by  either  of  the  other 
biographers  in  their  accounts  of  the  Supper.  We  can 
explain  this  discrepance  and  omission  on  no  other  theory 
than  the  Trinitarian  hypothesis  just  stated.  If  the  dis- 
closure of  the  Deity  of  Jesus  and  the  Triune  constitution 
of  the  Infinite  was  first  clearly  made  at  that  time,  is  it 
possible,  I  ask  you,  that  it  should  have  been  overlooked 
by  the  three  Evangelists  who  first  wrote  the  account  of 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  109 

Jesus's  ministry, — and  that  it  should  have  been  reserved 
for  John  to  recall  it,  who  did  not  prepare  his  Gospel, 
according  to  the  admission  of  Trinitarian  scholars,  until 
a  generation  later?  Can  any  satisfactory  answer  be 
made  to  this  objection  ?  It  seems  to  me  to  shut  out  the 
possibility  of  explanation. 

Others  maintain  that  it  was  after  the  resurrection, 
and  just  before  the  ascension,  that  Christ  unfolded  the 
mystery  of  his  person  and  of  the  Godhead.  The  an- 
nouncement was  made  in  the  formula  of  the  great  com- 
mission, —  "  Go  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  Still  we  should  expect  to  find  all  the  Evange- 
lists agreeing  in  the  disclosure  of  the  mystery.  We 
should  expect  to  find  it  the  focal  point  of  light  and  pow- 
er on  their  pages.  But  we  are  struck  again  with  the 
fact  that  only  Matthew  records  this  formula  as  having 
been  used  by  Jesus.  Neither  Mark,  Luke,  nor  John 
alludes  to  the  utterance  of  any  such  phrase  by  Christ 
at  the  close  of  his  career,  or  any  statement  concerning 
his  own  Deity  or  the  threefoldness  of  God.  If,  as  Dr. 
Huntington  tells  us,  "  in  every  respect,  it  was  the  nat- 
ural and  fitting  time  for  the  decisive,  explicit  communi- 
cation of  the  one  essential  characteristic  truth  of  his  re- 
ligion ; "  if  now  "  we  listen  with  breathless  anxiety  to 
hear  what  Christianity  means ; "  feeling  that  "  now,  if 
ever,  Christ  will  distinctly  proclaim  the  doctrine  of  Chris- 
tendom ; "  and  especially  if  this  doctrine,  so  solemnly  ut- 
tered, be  the  Trinity,  which  has  never  before  been  stated 
by  Jesus  to  his  disciples,  is  it  possible  that  it  should  have 
been  omitted  by  Luke  and  John,  as  carelessly  as  if  no 
such  conversation  had  taken  place  ?  Is  it  possible  that 


110  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE    DOCTEINE 

Mark  should  have  recorded  the  general  command  of 
Christ  to  teach  and  baptize,  but  have  left,  as  he  did,  the 
Trinitarian  formula  out  of  his  record  ?  Do  not  these 
facts  prove  as  clearly  as  moral  demonstration  can  be 
made  out,  that  the  baptismal  command  did  not  represent 
to  the  Apostles  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  for  the  first 
time  clearly  stated  by  Jesus  to  his  followers  ? 

And  yet  the  strength  of  the  case  is  not  exhausted 
yet.  If  the  phrases  of  the  great  commission,  at  the 
close  of  Matthew's  Gospel,  was  the  comprehensive 
statement  of  the  Trinity  into  which  believers  were  to 
be  baptized,  —  if  it  was  the  new  and  clear  revelation  of 
Jesus,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  ministry,  of  a  mystery 
concealed  wholly  or  in  part  from  his  disciples  until 
then,  —  we  shall  surely  see  the  effect  of  it  in  the  first 
preaching  of  the  Apostles,  after  Jesus  passes  from  the 
world.  The  Book  of  the  Acts  will  be  one  continual 
and  blazing  commentary  upon  that  revelation,  last 
made  to  the  "Apostles,  of  the  Deity  of  Christ  and  the 
Trinity  of  the  Godhead.  If  the  first  three  Gospels 
are  obscure,  that  book  will  be  luminous,  and  will  crush 
any  possibility  of  Unitarianism  in  the  Church.  Some 
Trinitarian  scholars,  indeed,  have  maintained  that  it  was 
not  till  after  Christ's  ascension,  till  the  day  of  Pente- 
cost, when  the  Spirit  was  given  to  the  Apostles,  that 
they  were  fully  enlightened  as  to  the  great  mystery  of 
the  Godhead. 

But  now  what  shall  we  say  when  all  the  speeches  of 
the  Apostles  in  Jerusalem,  just  after  Pentecost,  contain 
no  statement  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus,  and  no  allusion  to 
a  threefold  personality,  or  any  mystery  in  the  consti- 
tution of  the  Godhead  ?  And  these  were  sermons 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  Ill 

preached  to  Unitarian  Jews.  Read  those  opening  chap- 
ters of  the  Acts,  and  see  how  the  burden  of  the  speeches 
is  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  "  a  man  approved  of  God 
among  you  by  miracles,  and  wonders,  and  signs,  which 
God  did  by  him  in  the  midst  of  you,"  by  the  power 
of  God,  and  his  exaltation  by  the  Almighty  to  be 
the  Prince  and  Saviour  of  men.  Would  it  have  been 
possible  for  Peter  and  Stephen,  with  the  truth  just 
revealed  to  their  minds  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus  and 
his  equality  with  the  Father,  to  make  the  addresses 
recorded  in  the  first  half  of  the  Book  of  Acts, — 
addresses  from  which  hundreds  must  derive  their  first 
impressions  of  Christ's  rank,  —  which  not  only  do  not 
state  the  doctrine,  but  from  which  it  could  not  be  in- 
ferred, and  whose  theology  would  not  be  considered 
sound  and  evangelical,  if  made  by  a  young  Orthodox 
candidate  before  the  mildest  Orthodox  council  of  New 
England  ? 

But  follow  every  Apostle  in  his  ministry  through  the 
pages  of  the  Book  of  Acts.  In  no  sermon  or  speech 
of  any  speaker,  in  any  missionary  tour,  is  the  Deity  of 
Christ  stated.  Jesus  has  been  raised  from  the  dead ; 
Jesus  is  the  Christ ;  Jesus  has  been  appointed  judge 
of  the  world,  and  is  to  return  to  rule  over  Christen- 
dom ;  the  Divine  Spirit  is  given  as  the  result  and  seal 
of  faith  in  Christ's  Messiahship ;  —  I  ask  you  to  read 
the  Book  of  the  Acts  through  continuously,  and  see 
if  these  are  not  the  exhaustive  ideas  of  the  Apostles 
in  their  first  preaching  of  Christ  to  the  world.  We 
are  told  that  the  baptismal  phrase  was  given  by  Christ 
to  the  Apostles,  at  the  close  of  his  ministry,  as  a  state- 
ment of  the  Trinity,  and  the  creed  into  which  converts 


112  TRINITARIANISM  NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

must  be  baptized.  Yet  not  a  single  instance  is  re- 
corded in  all  Peter's  and  Paul's  tours  of  the  use  of  that 
formula  in  baptism.  That  ordinance  was  always  ad- 
ministered in  the  name  of  Christ  alone.  The  phrase 
"  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost "  does  not  occur  in  the 
whole  record  of  the  early  missionary  preaching  of  the 
first  teachers  of  the  Church.  And  if  that  Book  of  Acts 
should  be  taken  out  of  the  New  Testament,  and  handed 
over  as  a  dictionary  to  a  theological  professor  in  Prince- 
ton or  Andover,  the  Trinitarian  creed  of -either  of  those 
institutions  could  not  be  drawn  from  it  by  any  recombi- 
nation of  its  verses. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  Paul's  speech  on  Mars 
Hill,  the  first  publication  of  the  Gospel  in  the  most  cul- 
tured city  of  Europe,  is  entirely  Unitarian.  It  is  so 
unevangelical  that  it  could  not  to-day  be  accepted  as 
a  Tract,  to  be  issued  by  the  Tract  Society,  as  a  state- 
ment of  Christianity,  any  more  than  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  could.  It  has  not  in  it  any  of  what  are  called 
the  distinguishing  doctrines  of  grace.  And  all  the 
speeches  are  equally  destitute  of  the  Trinitarian  doc- 
trine. It  is  doubtful  even  if  the  pre-existence  of  Jesus, 
his  superiority  in  rank  to  a  great  prophet  supernatu- 
rally  raised  from  the  dead,  and  made  the  Spiritual 
Priest  and  Ruler  of  the  race  by  the  Almighty,  could  be 
gathered  from  that  whole  book.  However  this  may  be, 
the  doctrine  of  the  oneness  and  simplicity  of  God,  as 
the  Jews  had  always  understood  it,  is  not  disturbed  by 
any  allusion. 

The  only  reference,  in  the  sermon  of  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton,  to  the  Book  of  Acts,  is  his  quotation  of  this  pas- 
sage from  one  of  the  addresses  recorded  in  it :  "  The 


OF   THE    NEW   TESTAMENT.  113 

God  of  our  fathers  raised  up  Jesus ;  him  hath  God  ex- 
alted to  be  a  Prince  and  a  Saviour,  for  to  give  repent- 
ance to  Israel  and  forgiveness  of  sins."  On  this  passage 
Dr.  Huntington  makes  this  comment :  "  Is  it  not  right 
to  ask  him  who  gives  repentance  and  forgiveness  of 
sins,  to  do  it  ?  "  Grant  it ;  but  does  the  asking  of  spir- 
itual help  from  a  glorified  nature  whom  "  God  hath 
exalted,"  prove  that  being  a  mysterious,  indefinable 
part  of  a  threefold  God  ?  Suppose  that  the  Apostles 
thought  it  right  to  pay  spiritual  honor  to  the  risen  Je- 
sus, does  that  prove  him  to  have  been  in  their  concep- 
tion the  uncreated  Deity?  They  certainly  believed 
him  to  be  the  Son  of  God  in  a  very  exalted  and  pe- 
culiar sense ;  but  the  question  before  us  is,  Did  they 
believe  him  to  be  God  the  Son  ?  And  further,  did 
they  believe  him  to  be  one  of  a  Triune  Infinite,  each 
equal  to  the  other,  each  possessing  a  separate  conscious- 
ness, and  all  forming  but  one  Substance  and  Will  ? 
Until  evidence  and  passages  are  brought  to  establish 
this  point,  the  needs  of  the  Trinitarian  position  are  not 
met. 

And  on  this  point,  we  repeat,  the  Book  of  Acts  is 
not  only  silent,  but  opposed.  It  must  be  accounted  op- 
posed, if  it  is  simply  silent.  For,  according  to  the 
Trinitarian  hypothesis,  here  is  the  great  mystery  an- 
nounced by  the  ascending  Christ  as  he  has  closed  his 
ministry  of  humiliation,  that  he  has  been  God  veiled 
in  the  flesh,  and  that  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
are  coequal  with  him  in  a  union  which  makes  only  one 
being  ;  and  the  Apostles,  educated  rigid  Unitarians, 
who  receive  it,  and  who  go  out  to  preach  the  new  Gos- 
pel, never  state  it  in  Jerusalem,  in  Samaria,  in  Joppa, 
8 


114  TRINITARIANISM  NOT   THE  DOCTRINE 

in  Antioch,  in  Macedonia,  in  Athens,  in  Ephesus,  in 
Rome !  In  a  dozen  years  of  earnest  preaching  by 
various  men,  it  does  not  appear.  No  record  of  any 
baptism  into  the  threefold  name  is  given.  They  speak 
always  of  Jesus  commissioned  and  exalted  by  the  Al- 
mighty, after  his  death,  to  be  the  head  of  a  Universal 
Church.  And  there  is  no  account  in  any  act  of  wor- 
ship, of  any  prayer  or  hymn  commencing  or  closing 
with  adoration  to  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  Could 
this  be  true  of  any  missionaries  now  going  to  various 
countries  to  preach  the  Gospel  for  the  first  time? 
Would  the  salaries  of  any  six  or  twelve  men,  of  whom 
such  reports  came  from  Burmah  or  the  Sandwich  Isl- 
ands to  the  American  Board,  be  continued  to  them 
another  quarter  ? 

I  have  been  thus  particular  with  this  document,  be- 
cause we  generally  conduct  the  discussion  about  the 
Trinity  or  the  Atonement  too  loosely,  by  quoting  texts 
from  different  books,  some  bearing  on  one  point  and 
some  on  another,  bringing  them  together  as  a  worker 
in  mosaic  makes  a  bird,  or  a  figure,  or  a  temple,  out  of 
various  kinds  and  bits  and  colors  of  stone.  This  would 
be  a  tolerable  method,  perhaps,  if  the  New  Testament 
was  one  book,  written  in  chapters  by  one  man,  continu- 
ously, and  with  one  object  steadily  in  view.  Then  the 
defect  of  evidence  in  one  chapter  might  be  compen- 
sated by  fulness  in  another.  But  each  book  is  a  sep- 
arate production.  And  the  Book  of  Acts,  following 
directly  after  the  first  three  Gospels,  in  date  far  earlier 
than  the  Gospel  of  John,  is  the  record  of  the  first 
preaching  of  Christianity  for  a  dozen  years,  by  per- 
sonal disciples  of  Christ,  and  by  Paul,  in  their  earliest 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  115 

enthusiasm,  when  its  characteristic  doctrines  must  be 
brought  out  clearly  to  hearers  in  different  countries, 
who  listen  to  it  for  the  first  time.  And  if  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  is  not  there ;  if  the  Deity  of  Christ  is 
not  stated  in  any  of  its  pages ;  if  no  ascription  of  praise 
to  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  goes  up  from  any  of  its 
chapters,  —  I  confess  that  I  know  not  how  a  more  fatal 
blow  can  be  dealt  upon  the  assertion  that  it  forms 
part  of  original  Christianity.  If  I  were  to  become  a 
Trinitarian,  it  could  be  only  on  the  Catholic  ground 
that  tradition  is  superior  to  Scripture,  and  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  from  time  to  time  enlightens  councils  and 
popes  to  bring  out  and  clear  up  doctrines  that  were 
concealed,  or  not  amply  stated,  by  the  earliest  promul- 
gators  of  the  word. 

In  the  lecture  next  Sunday  afternoon,  I  shall  ask 
you  to  consider  the  teaching  of  Paul  on  the  same 
doctrine.  And  I  wish  that  you  might  all,  during  the 
week,  as  I  have  during  the  last  week,  read  the  whole 
New  Testament  through  carefully,  to  see  what  is  its 
teaching  on  the  point,  Is  God  three,  or  is  he  one? 
Is  Christ  subordinate  to  him  in  heaven  now,  as  once  on 
earth,  or  is  he  coequal  in  power,  majesty,  and  unde- 
rived  life?  Study  it  reverently,  study  it  faithfully, 
study  it  in  unbroken  charity  to  all  that  hold,  or  that 
pass  to,  a  different  view. 

And  that  we  may  not  close  to-day  with  a  controver- 
sial temper,  let  us  consider,  in  the  language  of  one  who 
has  written  one  of  the  most  powerful  discourses  against 
the  Trinity  in  English  literature,  —  James  Martineau 
of  England,  —  the  value  of  Christ  to  a  Unitarian,  even 
if  he  holds  the  humanitarian  scheme :  u  Him  we  accept, 


116  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE   DOCTRINE 

not  indeed  as  very  God,  but  as  the  true  image  of  God, 
commissioned  to  show  what  no  written  doctrinal  record 
could  declare,  —  the  entire  moral  perfections  of  Deity. 
The  universe  gives  us  the  scale  of  God,  and  Christ  his 
Spirit.  We  climb  to  the  infinitude  of  his  nature  by 
the  awful  pathway  of  the  stars,  where  whole  forests  of 
worlds  quiver  here  and  there,  like  a  small  leaf  of  light. 
The  scope  of  his  intellect  and  the  majesty  of  his  rule 
are  seen  in  the  tranquil  order  and  everlasting  silence 
that  reign  through  the  fields  of  his  volition.  And  the 
Spirit  that  animates  the  whole  is  like  that  of  the  Prophet 
of  Nazareth ;  the  thoughts  that  fly  upon  the  swift  light 
throughout  creation,  charged  with  fates  unnumbered,  are 
like  the  healing  mercies  of  one  that  passed  no  sorrow 
by.  A  faith  that  spreads  around  and  within  the  mind 
a  Deity  thus  sublime  and  holy,  feeds  the  light  of  every 
pure  affection,  and  presses  with  omnipotent  power  on 
the  conscience ;  and  our  only  prayer  is  that  we  may 
walk  as  children  of  such  light." 


OP   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  117 


LECTURE    II. 


«  There  is  one  body  and  one  spirit,  even  as  ye  are  called  in  one  hope 
of  your  calling ;  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism ;  one  God  and  Father 
of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  you  all."  —  Ephesians  iv. 
4,5,6. 

IN  the  lecture  of  last  Sunday  afternoon,  we  treated 
the  evidence  bearing  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
which  is  yielded  by  a  careful  examination  of  the  four 
Gospels  and  the  Book  of  Acts.  To-day  our  chief  ob- 
ject is  to  pass  in  review,  for  the  same  purpose,  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 

We  are  considering  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  espe- 
cially in  relation  to  the  recent  assertion  of  it  in  a  re- 
markable discourse,  by  the  preacher  to  the  Cambridge 
University.  This  is  his  condensed  statement  of  the 
doctrine,  as  he  holds  it,  having  abandoned  for  it  the 
Unitarianism  which  he  once  preached,  but  which  he 
now  impeaches  as  at  war"  with  Scripture,  and  incom- 
petent to  nurture  a  sound  piety  and  a  working  church. 
"  In  the  transcendent,  removed,  and  awful  depth  of  his 
Absolute  Infinitude,  which  no  understanding  can  pierce, 
the  Everlasting  and  Almighty  God  lives  in  an  exist- 
ence of  which  our  only  possible  knowledge  is  gained  by 
lights  thrown  back  from  revelation.  Out  of  that  ineffa- 
ble and  veiled  Godhead,  —  the  groundwork,  if  we  may 
say  so,  of  all  Divine  manifestation,  or  theophany,  — 


118  TRINITARIANISM  NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

there  emerge  to  us  in  revelation  the  three  whom  we 
rightly  call  persons, —  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost, — 
with  their  several  individual  offices,  mutual  relations, 
operations  towards  men,  and  perfect  unity  together.* 
Holding  fast  the  prime  and  positive  fact  of  this  unity, 
we  have  given  us,  as  an  equal  maker  of  faith,  the 
Threeness.  We  know  of  no  priority  to  that  Three- 
ness  ;  of  no  epoch  when  it  was  not ;  of  no  Deity 
independent  of  that  threefold  distinction.  A  question 
at  that  point  takes  us  over  into  realms  utterly  inscru- 
table to  thought.  We  conceive  of  God  always,  not  as 

*  Dr.  Huntington's  theory  of  the  Trinity,  carefully  scrutinized, 
displays  a  singular  inconsistency  with  itself,  as  well  as  with  the 
Scripture  he  adduces  in  its  support.  He  makes  Father,  Son,  and 
Spirit  equally  manifestations  of  the  obscure  abyss  of  the  Godhead. 
He  tells  us  that  "  the  qualities  of  the  unutterable  deific  substance 
are  present  in  each."  "  The  eternal  Son,"  he  says,  "  is  seen  re- 
maining rooted  for  ever  in  the  Godhead,  having  the  basis  of  his 
being  unchanged,  deific,  uncreated."  "  Christ  comes  forth  out  of 
the  Godhead  as  the  Son,  the  Saviour."  Of  course,  then,  the  pe- 
culiarity of  his  scheme  is  that  "  the  Father  "  is  no  less  a  form  of 
manifesting  the  unspeakable  Deity  than  the  Son.  They  "  emerge  " 
equally  as  theophanies.  And  yet  he  tells  us,  in  the  same  para- 
graph, that  the  Son  is  eternally  begotten  of  the  Father,  —  a  the- 
ophany  from  a  theophany,  —  contradicting  thus  the  statement  that 
he  issues,  equally  with  the  Father  and  Spirit,  from  the  infinite 
substance  which  is  their  common  base,  the  "  God  in  whom  they 
are  all  one,"  from  whom  "  these  three  personalities  issue  forth  to 
take  up  their  merciful  and  glorious  offices." 

Dr.  Huntington  seems  to  have  been  conscious  of  this  ill-adjust- 
ment of  parts  in  his  scheme.  For  he  tells  us  on  the  371st  page, 
that  by  "  thinking  patiently  "  we  shall  see  that  "  human  language 
could  not  so  well  represent  these  infinite  realities  as  by  using  the 
same  term, '  Father/  sometimes  for  the  Absolute  Godhead,  and 
sometimes  for  that  relative  paternal  person  in  the  Godhead  brought 


OP   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  119 

Absolute  Being,  but  as  in  relations,  in  process,  in  act. 
And  in  such  relations,  process,  act,  we  behold  him  only 
as  Three  :  —  the  Son  eternally  begotten  of  the  Father, 
not  subordinate  in  nature  or  essence,  nor  created,  nor 
beginning,  but  consubstantial  with  the  Father:  —  the 
Holy  Ghost  ever  proceeding  from  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  not  in  time,  nor  made  out  of  nothing,  but  one  in 
power,  and  glory,  and  eternity  with  them  both." 

This  doctrine,  which  Dr.  Huntington  calls  the  work- 
ing scheme  of  Revelation,  we  have  sought  in  the  four 
Gospels  and  the  Book  of  Acts,  written  by  Jews  who  were 
educated  in  the  strictest  Unitarianism,  and  published 

to  view  only  when  the  Son  and  the  Spirit  appear."  But  after 
"  thinking  patiently,"  we  cannot  imagine  why  the  New  Testament 
could  not  state  Professor  Huntington's  theory  as  clearly  as  he  has 
done  it.  We  cannot  conceive  how  human  language  can  so  well 
represent  any  utterable  realities  as  by  consistently  stating  them. 
If  the  Son,  as  Dr.  Huntington  clearly  enough  states,  is  a  direct 
emanation,  like  the  Father,  from  the  Godhead,  we  do  not  see  why 
the  New  Testament  should  use  the  word  "  Father  "  for  the  Abso- 
lute God,  speak  of  the  Son  as  issuing  from  him,  and  thus  confuse 
the  whole  subject. 

But  if  the  New  Testament,  as  is  the  fact,  does  not  say  anything 
at  all  about  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  emerging  as  three  personali- 
ties from  one  deific  substance,  we  cannot  conjecture  where  Dr. 
Huntington  found  the  material  for  his  theory,  especially  his  author- 
ity for  calling  it  "  the  working  scheme  of  revelation  and  redemp- 
tion." We  may  be  told  that  the  whole  subject  is  such  a  mystery 
that  language  and  reasoning  are  not  competent  to  contain  or  out- 
line it.  Why,  then,  make  a  theory  about  it  ?  Why  not  leave  the 
whole  matter  where  Scripture  leaves  it,  with  no  Triune  statement 
or  suggestion  ?  If  a  theologian  offers  a  theory  of  the  mystery, 
we  expect  that  to  be  ^elf-consistent  through  the  compass  of  one 
paragraph :  he  cannot  protect  that  from  scrutiny  by  the  plea  of 
mystery. 


120  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

first  —  with  the  exception  of  John's  Gospel  —  in  Unita- 
rian Palestine.  We  have  not  found  any  such  doctrine 
there.  We  have  found  passages  that  imply  a  very  high 
and  mysterious  rank  for  Jesus  Christ ;  but  we  have  not 
found  any  language  in  which  this  confession  of  the  Cam- 
bridge preacher  can  possibly  be  stated.  All  the  Scrip- 
tural phrases  from  those  books  which  he  could  quote  to 
sustain  such  a  position,  would  not  even  suggest  his  doc- 
trine to  one  that  had  never  heard  of  it,  let  them  be  put 
together  as  cunningly  as  the  most  partisan  Trinitarian 
theologian  could  arrange  them  ;  while  the  positive  and 
repeated  expressions  of  those  books,  and  their  drift,  are 
at  war  with  such  a  Triune  definition  of  the  Godhead. 

We  are  now  to  seek  the  testimony  of  the  Pauline 
epistles  upon  the  same  point.  But  before  such  an  in- 
quiry, let  us  glance  at  the  books  of  the  New  Testament 
which  remain  after  those  epistles,  the  four  Gospels,  and 
the  Acts  are  examined. 

Study  the  general  letter  of  James  to  the  Jewish  Chris- 
tians. Ask  yourself  if  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  which 
I  have  just  quoted  could  be  derived  from  that  ?  The 
Holy  Spirit  is  not  mentioned  in  it.  The  Deity  of  Christ 
is  not  stated  or  implied.  Yet  it  deals  with  the  questions 
of  prayer,  justification,  the  tests  of  discipleship,  and  the 
reception  of  spiritual  blessings  from  heaven.  It  would 
not  be  possible  for  an  Orthodox  clergyman  to  treat  the 
themes  which  the  Epistle  of  James  unfolds,  without 
using  the  characteristic  phrases  of  the  Trinitarian  dog- 
ma. He  would  be  suspected  of  heresy,  or  his  discourse 
would  be  pronounced  unsavory,  if  he  did  not.  Yet  James 
wrote  his  epistle  to  men  who  had  been  trained  as  Uni- 
tarians, and  who  would  have  needed  to  be  confirmed  by 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  121 

apostolical  authority  in  a  Trinitarian  faith.  A  very 
distinguished  living  scholar,  not  a  Unitarian,  says  of  this 
epistle  and  the  writer  of  it,  "  Real  justice  and  practical 
charity  to  the  brethren,  true  humility  and  thankfulness 
to  God,  no  longer  under  the  servitude  of  ordinances, 
but  under  the  perfect  law  of  liberty ;  these  were  in  his 
eyes  the  substance  of  the  message  which  Christ  brought 
to  man  from  God." 

Look  next  at  the  Epistles  of  Peter.  There  is  no 
statement  in  their  chapters  of  three  persons  in  one  God. 
There  is  no  ascription  of  praise  to  the  Holy  Ghost.  In 
two  or  three  passages  the  Spirit,  or  the  Holy  Spirit,  is 
spoken  of,  but  in  ways  inconsistent  with  a  belief  that  it 
is  a  separate  Divine  personality,  much  less  a  coequal 
person  in  an  Eternal  Three.  And  so  far  is  Jesus  from 
receiving  in  these  epistles  the  title  or  rank  of  Deity,  he 
is  declared  to  have  been  raised  from  the  dead  by  the 
superior  power  of  God,  to  be  "on  the  right  hand  of 
God;  angels  and  authorities  and  powers  being  made 
subject  unto  him."  Who  made  them  subject  unto  him? 
if  by  nature  he  is  "  one  in  power,  and  glory,  and  eter- 
nity with  the  Father  "  ? 

The  Epistle  of  Jude  has  no  Triune  statement,  distin- 
guishes the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  from  God,  and  closes 
with  an  offering  of  praise,  not  as  a  Trinitarian  epistle 
would,  to  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  but  "  to  the  only 
wise  God,  our  Saviour." 

The  letter  to  the  Hebrews,  which  is  considered  very 
strong  in  support  of  the  Atonement,  but  which  was  not, 
probably,  written  by  Paul,  or  any  Apostle,  cannot  be 
quoted  to  originate  any  Trinitarian  hypothesis  concerning 
the  Godhead.  It  not  only  contains  no  offering  of  praise 


122  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE    DOCTRINE 

to  the  Holy  Ghost  at  the  close,  where  God  is  invoked, 
but  it  distinctly  denies  the  coequal  rank  of  Christ  with 
God,  while  it  affirms  his  super-earthly  nature.  It  be- 
gins by  saying  that  God  hath  in  these  last  days  spoken 
unto  us  by  his  Son,  whom  he  hath  appointed  heir  of 
all  things,  by  whom  also  he  made  the  worlds.  The  Son 
is  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  and  the  express 
image  of  his  person,  "  being  made  so  much  better  than 
the  angels,  as  he  hath  by  inheritance  obtained  a  more 
excellent  name  than  they."  "  Therefore  God,  even  thy 
God,  hath  anointed  thee  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above 
thy  fellows"  "When  he  bringeth  in  the  first-begotten 
into  the  world,  he  saith,  And  let  all  the  angels  of  God 
worship  him."  I  will  not  quote  other  verses  from  the 
epistle  that  affirm  decisively  the  fact  that  Jesus  obtained 
a  higher  honor  by  his  earthly  suffering  and  love  than  he 
wore  before.  I  need  only  quote  these  passages  that  de- 
clare the  native  dignity  and  splendor  of  his  rank,  to  show 
that  Trinitarianism  is  opposed  by  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews. For,  imagine  it  said  of  a  coequal  member  of 
the  Trinity  (before  the  incarnation,  so  that  we  cannot 
say  the  language  is  used  of  his  mortal  nature),  that  he 
is  anointed  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  his  fellows, 
and  has  obtained  by  inheritance  a  more  excellent  name 
than  the  angels ! 

The  Epistles  of  John  are  often  appealed  to  in  proof 
of  the  dependence  of  the  world  upon  Jesus  for  its  spirit- 
ual life,  and  of  the  intimate,  mystical  union  of  Christ  as 
the  Son  with  the  Infinite  Father.  And  there  is  one 
verse  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  the  First  Epistle  which  de- 
clares that  "  there  are  three  that  bear  record  in  heaven, 
the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  these 


OF    THE    NEW   TESTAMENT.  123 

three  are  one."  This  is  the  only  Trinitarian  verse  in 
the  New  Testament,  —  the  only  explicit  assertion  of  a 
oneness  in  the  Godhead  composed  of  three  constituents. 
And  this  passage  is  spurious.  It  is  acknowledged  to  be 
such  by  the  great  Trinitarian  critics  themselves.  It 
would  be  omitted  by  any  council  of  trustworthy  scholars 
from  the  Protestant  sects,  who  should  be  called  to  de- 
cide whether  it  should  remain  in  the  Bible.  It  was 
foisted  upon  an  early  manuscript  by  some  partisan  tran- 
scriber, who  thought,  most  likely,  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment ought  to  be  made  more  emphatically  Trinitarian. 
You  will  look  in  vain  for  any  recognition,  in  what  the 
Apostle  John  wrote  in  the  epistles,  of  the  threefold  unity 
of  the  Divine  nature,  or  the  separate  personality  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

And  now  the  Book  of  Revelation  is  to  be  spoken  of. 
In  this  tremendous  poem  the  throne  of  God  is  described, 
but  no  Trinity  is  depicted  as  revealed  from  it.  No  Trin- 
ity is  symbolized  in  any  of  its  fire-sketches  of  the  scenery 
and  sanctities  of  heaven.  The  worship  of  the  invisible 
world,  the  praise  of  angels  and  the  redeemed,  is  inter- 
preted to  us  in  verses  such  as  earthly  pages  never  caught 
from  any  other  pen.  The  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are 
adored  in  the  choruses  ;  but  they  are  not  worshipped  as 
one,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  celebrated  in  their  praise. 
Indeed,  the  book  opens  with  these  words :  "  The  revela- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ  which  God  gave  unto  him,  to  show 
unto  his  servants  things  which  must  shortly  come  to 
pass."  Take  notice  that  it  is  Christ  in  heaven,  not  on 
earth  in  a  mortal  body,  of  whom  this  dependence  on  God 
for  knowledge  is  affirmed.  And  Christ  is  called  in  it 
"  the  beginning  of  the  creation  of  God,"  "  the  prince  of 


124  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE   DOCTRINE 

the  kings  of  the  earth."  He  is  represented  in  it  as  say- 
ing :  "  To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  grant  to  sit  with 
me  in  my  throne,  even  as  I  also  overcame,  and  am  set 
down  with  my  Father  in  his  throne."  Is  this  a  Trini- 
tarian book  ?  Would  a  Trinitarian  poet  of  modern  times, 
flooded  with  the  ecstasy  of  devotion,  and  pouring  out 
his  imaginations  of  heaven  and  its  worship,  presume  to 
depict  a  throne  over  which  no  Trinity  brooded,  a  sanc- 
tification  independent  of  the  third  person  of  the  God- 
head, a  universal  hallelujah,  and  no  breath  of  it  lifted  to 
the  Holy  Ghost? 

I  do  not  pretend,  of  course,  that,  in  the  books  scanned 
thus  rapidly,  there  are  not  very  difficult  questions  to  be 
examined  as  to  the  relations  of  Christ's  nature  and  office 
to  the  Divine  Love,  the  gift  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  and 
the  regeneration  of  the  world.  But  I  maintain  that 
whatever  doctrines  they  may  teach,  they  do  not  teach  the 
Trinity  of  the  church  creeds  of  to-day,  and  are  fatally 
inconsistent  with  the  formula  of  the  Divine  nature,  which 
I  quoted  from  the  discourse  of  the  Cambridge  preacher, 
and  in  which  he  embraces  the  Trinity  as  the  only  Scrip- 
tural scheme.  And  these  are  documents  which  should 
not  only  be  in  harmony  with  it,  but  which  should  be  the 
sources  of  it,  —  in  which  it  should  appear  as  unmistak- 
ably as  in  any  modern  creed. 

We  come  now  to  the  thirteen  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
Do  they  announce  or  support  the  ecclesiastical  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  ?  Sitting  down  to  an  exclusive  study  of 
those  letters,  putting  aside  the  interpretations  and  de- 
velopments of  later  generations  in  the  Church,  have  we 
a  right  to  say,  are  we  compelled  to  say,  that  nothing  but 


OF    THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  125 

the  modern  conception  of  Three  Divine  Persons  as  one 
God  will  correspond  with  the  earliest  thought  and  worship 
of  the  Church,  so  far  as  Paul  instructed  and  controlled  it? 

Do  not  let  us  confuse  points  here,  or  be  drawn  to 
side-issues.  Paul  affirmed  a  very  high  doctrine  of 
Jesus  Christ.  He  believed  and  taught  with  fervor  and 
joy  that  the  spiritual  life  of  the  race  was  dependent  on 
the  advent  of  Christ  from  heaven,  his  assumption  of 
our  mortal  flesh  and  lot,  his  death,  resurrection  and  as- 
cension. I  can  have  no  controversy  with  any  Christian 
who  draws  this  doctrine  from  the  great  Apostle.  His 
letters  affirm  that  Christ  is  to  be  praised  and  worship- 
ped in  some  degree  by  the  whole  creation.  But  do 
they  declare  that  he  is  God  underived  in  his  being,  as 
Dr.  Huntington  says,  "  not  subordinate  in  nature  or 
essence,  nor  created,  nor  beginning,  but  consubstantial 
with  the  Father,"  so  that  he  is  to  be  worshipped  as 
God  ?  Still  further,  which  is  our  special  concern  here, 
do  they  teach  that  God  has  revealed  himself,  and  is  to 
be  adored  as  a  Tri-unity,  and  that  worship  is  defective 
which  is  not  paid  to  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son,  and 
God  the  Holy  Ghost,  three  persons  and  one  Deity  ? 

Without  the  slightest  fear  of  disproof,  I  say,  No. 
They  make  no  such  statement  explicitly,  and  they  do 
not  imply  such  a  conception.  They  not  only  do  not  de- 
clare or  include  such  a  doctrine,  —  they  oppose  and 
forbid  it. 

It  would  require  a  very  long  discourse  even  to  state 
clearly,  in  modern  language,  the  relations  of  Christ's 
life  and  his  triumph  over  death  to  the  doom  and  the  re- 
demption of  humanity,  as  St.  Paul  conceived  them. 
But  we  must  pause  a  moment  upon  his  doctrine  of  the 


126  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE   DOCTRINE 

Spirit,  which  is  inwrought  with  the  whole  web  of  his 
theology,  and  with  his  practical  application  of  Christian 
truth.  As  a  Pharisee,  before  his  conversion  to  Jesus, 
Paul  believed  in  God  as  the  Monarch  of  nature,  the 
distant  Lord  of  the  Hebrew  nation,  judging  them  by  a 
law  which  he  had  published  through  Moses  and  inter- 
preted by  Prophets,  promising  them  a  national  Messiah, 
whose  rule  and  favor  they  were  to  deserve  by  ritual 
obedience  —  but  not  coming  near  to  them  himself, 
and  pouring  out  no  spiritual  blessings  upon  the  vast 
Gentile  world.  As  a  Christian  he  believed,  not  only 
that  Jesus  had  assumed  a  human  nature,  and  died  to 
express  the  love  of  God  and  break  the  bondage  of  evil, 
but  that  by  his  ascension  he  had  opened  a  perpetual 
fountain  of  grace  for  humanity.  The  Spirit  of  God, 
the  very  light  and  love  which  the  Infinite  had  kept 
shrouded  from  the  race  before,  was  poured  now  into 
every  soul  that  vitally  believed  in  the  risen  Jesus. 
There  was  no  abyss  any  more  between  God  and  man. 
The  Divine  radiance  that  was  in  Christ  in  his  former 
state,  and  that  was  continued  to  him  while  in  a  mortal 
form,  was  now  imparted  to  every  soul  that  joined  itself 
to  him  by  gratitude  and  trust.  So  that  a  man,  as  a 
Christian,  in  Paul's  view,  did  not  pledge  himself  to 
walk  by  a  written  revelation  or  the  recorded  example 
of  Christ,  but  received  the  inward  illumination  from  the 
Divine  Spirit  flowing  through  Christ  into  his  soul.  By 
that  Spirit  we  are  enabled  to  say  "Father"  to  God,  as 
Christ  said  it  on  earth,  and  says  it  now  in  heaven.  "We 
are  aided  to  pray :  we  apprehend  some  of  the  deep 
things  of  God :  we  discern  what  eye  had  not  seen  nor 
ear  heard,  nor  had  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  be- 


OF    THE, NEW   TESTAMENT.  127 

fore :  we  know  that  we  are  sons  of  the  Infinite :  we  are 
"  heirs  of  God  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ." 

Sometimes  Paul  calls  this  diffused  grace  the  Spirit  of 
Christ,  sometimes  the  mind  of  Christ,  sometimes  the 
Spirit  of  God,  again  simply  the  Spirit,  then  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  often  in  our  version  it  is  rendered  the  Holy 
Ghost.  It  was  this  which  gave  life  and  unity  to  the 
Church.  This  was  the  life  of  God  received  into  human 
nature,  to  cleanse,  quicken,  comfort,  and  inspire.  By 
it  the  fellowship  was  completed  between  souls  on  earth 
and  Christ,  and  the  Infinite  Love.  "  Ye  are  not  in  the 
flesh,  but  in  the  spirit,  if  so  be  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
dwell  in  you.  And  if  Christ  be  in  you,  the  body  is 
dead  because  of  sin ;  but  the  spirit  is  life  because  of 
righteousness.  But  if  the  spirit  of  him  that  raised  up 
Jesus  from  the  dead  dwell  in  you,  he  that  raised  up 
Christ  from  the  dead  shall  also  quicken  your  mortal 
bodies  by  his  Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  you." 

Paul's  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  affirmation 
that  the  deepest  divine  life  is  communicated  to  human 
nature  as  a  present  possession  by  a  true  Christian 
faith,  so  that  we  are  brought  into  organic  fellowship 
and  oneness  here  with  Christ,  and  derive  truth  at  first 
hand  from  God,  not  at  second  hand  through  a  Bible, 
and  at  third  hand  through  creeds  or  ecclesiastical  cor- 
porations. It  is  the  Quaker  doctrine  inflamed  with  'a 
passion  like  Luther's.  The  Church  has  lost  in  great 
degree  this  meaning  of  it,  and  stumbles  over  the  majes- 
tic sentences  into  the  conception  that  they  teach  a  sepa- 
rate God,  mysteriously  one  with  the  Father,  but  distinct 
in  consciousness,  office,  and  will. 

Dr.  Neander,  the  most  learned  Christian  student  and 


128  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE    DOCTRINE 

scholar  of  our  century,  himself  Orthodox  according  to  a 
very  mild  and  genial  type,  in  his  history  of  the  Plant- 
ing and  Training  of  the  Christian  Church,  has  devoted 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  volume  to  a  systematic 
exposition  of  St.  Paul's  theological  scheme.  He  has  no 
title  over  any  page  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  thus 
showing  that  he  found  no  such  dogma  as  the  Triper- 
sonality  of  the  Infinite  in  the  domain  of  the  Apostle's 
thought.  But  at  the  close  of  the  book,  in  another  con- 
nection, he  defines  Paul's  essential  thought  to  be  that 
the  Father,  through  the  Son,  dwells  in  mankind  who 
are  animated  by  his  Spirit.  Precisely  the  conception 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  I  have  endeavored  to  state. 
This,  and  St.  John's  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  Dr.  Nean- 
der,  a  Trinitarian,  calls  "  the  intimations  "  out  of  which 
the  reflective  intellect  has  sought  "  to  elevate  itself  to 
an  original  triad  in  God." 

But  it  may  be  said  that  the  frequent  use  of  phrases 
by  Paul  in  which  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  are  in- 
voked or  adored,  shows  that  he  regarded  them  as  three 
persons,  and  coequal,  at  least  in  their  claim  to  human 
homage.  Now  without  dwelling  on  the  argument  that, 
if  Paul  believed  in  three  Divine  Persons,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  he  believed  them  to  be  equal  in 
rank,  and  portions  of  one  Deity,  let  me  ask  you  how 
frequent  Paul's  use  of  such  a  form  of  ascription  or  invo- 
cation is.  A  great  many  zealous  Christians,  regular 
readers  of  their  Bibles,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted,  believe 
that  such  expressions  occur  often  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Probably  thousands  of  intelligent  disciples 
would  answer,  "  Yes,"  if  they  were  asked  whether  the 
doxology,  "  Glory  be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  129 

to  the  Holy  Ghost,"  is  a  Scriptural  sentence.     There 
is  no  such  language  between  the  covers  of  the  Bible. 

Indeed,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  Dr.  Huntington  has 
not  attended  carefully  to  the  testimony  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament on  this  point.  He  speaks  of  many  passages  in 
the  Gospels  and  Epistles  that  teach  the  separate  per- 
sonality of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  can  be  wrested  from 
their  obvious  meaning  only  by  violence.  And  he  calls 
attention  to  "  the  Apostolical  benedictions,  which  were 
evidently  intended  to  be  what  they  have  so  generally 
proved,  the  familiar  repositories  and  often  repeated 
symbols  of  the  great  central  facts  of  Christian  the- 
ology." He  calls  especial  attention  to  one  of  these  as 
proving  the  personality  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  is  at  the 
close  of  the  second  letter  to  the  Corinthians.  And 
how  many  more  do  you  suppose  there  are?  Not 
another.  It  is  the  solitary  passage  in  the  whole  New 
Testament  where  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  are 
combined  in  any  formal  expression  of  worship.  And 
this  one  Dr.  Huntington  quotes  wrongly.  More  than 
that,  he  lays  the  stress  of  his  argument  on  a  word, 
which  he  italicizes,  that  does  not  appear  in  our  version. 
He  quotes  it :  "  The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  love  of  God,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  be  with  us  all  evermore ; "  and  calls  particular 
attention  to  the  word  "  fellowship,"  as  attributing  to  the 
Holy  Ghost  a  separate  consciousness  and  personality. 
But  Paul  said,  "  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
It  is  the  common  partaking  and  consciousnesss  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  which  he  invokes  for  the  Corinthians  in 
connection  with  the  grace  of  Christ  and  the  love  of 
God.  This  is  exactly  in  harmony  with  the  interpreta- 
9 


130  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE    DOCTRINE 

tion  we  have  given  of  Paul's  conception  of  the  Spirit,  as 
the  life  of  God  communicated  to  man,  dwelling  in  each 
heart,  and  uniting  the  Church  in  a  common  life.  Once 
afterwards  Dr.  Huntington  quotes  the  passage  in  his  dis- 
course with  the  same  error.  Of  course,  I  do  not  mean 
even  to  intimate  that,  in  calling  attention  to  the  Apos- 
tolical benedictions  in  support  of  the  Divine  Triper- 
sonality,  when  there  is  only  one  which  uses  the  three- 
fold element,  and  in  wrongly  quoting  the  vital  word  in 
that  one,  the  writer  intended  to  trifle  with  facts.  Such 
a  suspicion  would  be  not  only  uncharitable,  but  absurd. 
It  shows,  however,  the  loose  way  in  which  the  Scrip- 
tural evidence  for  the  modern  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
too  often  studied  and  arranged.  It  is  not  the  only  in- 
stance of  inaccurate  citation  from  Scripture  in  the  dis- 
course. But  the  mistake  will  not  be  a  misfortune,  if  it 
shall  lead  Dr.  Huntington  to  see  that  he  has  thrown 
out  several  sneers  at  the  manner  in  which  those  who 
deny  the  Trinity  treat  the  evidence,  and  that  he  has 
not  made  one  generous  allusion  to  the  use  of  Scripture 
by  Unitarians,  amongst  whom  he  was  a  favorite  and 
honored  preacher  for  many  years. 

The  benedictions  of  St.  Paul,  at  the  commencement 
and  ending  of  his  Epistles,  and  the  short  bursts  of 
praise  into  which  he  rises  at  times  in  the  midst  of  his 
reasoning,  are  opposed  to  the  idea  that  he  was  a  Trin- 
itarian. "  Grace  to  you  and  peace  from  God  our 
Father,  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  —  this,  with  the 
variation  of  a  word  or  two,  is  the  salutation  at  the  com- 
mencement of  all  the  thirteen  Epistles  from  his  pen. 
At  their  close  he  invokes  blessings  from  God,  or  the 
peace  of  God,  for  his  brethren,  and  often  unites  the 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  131 

name  of  Jesus  in  a  subordinate  way.  But  there  is  no 
address  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  no  supplication  from  the 
Spirit,  no  conjunction  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  in 
any  direct  homage  or  petition.  In  the  one  instance, 
out  of  some  thirty  ascriptions  and  benedictions,  where 
the  Spirit  is  introduced,  the  associated  word  implies 
that  the  Spirit  is  not  a  distinct  Divine  Being,  but  the 
communicated  life  of  God  to  the  Church.  Could  these 
facts  be  stated  of  those  Epistles  if  they  were  Trini- 
tarian documents,  the  fountains  of  the  Trinitarian 
scheme  for  the  whole  future  of  Christendom  ?  As 
to  the  spiritual  life  of  believers,  Paul  uses  the  concep- 
tion of  Father,  Christ,  and  the  Spirit ;  for  the  Father 
communicates  his  Spirit  —  the  same  which  Christ  is 
filled  with  —  to  the  souls  of  men  as  their  light  and 
strength.  But  when  Paul  rises  into  language  of  direct 
worship,  he  drops  the  Spirit  from  his  ascriptions  and 
prayers,  because  it  is  the  Father  communicated,  and 
of  course  is  not  to  be  addressed  as  a  separate  Person. 
But,  still  further,  the  Trinitarian  dogma,  so  far  as 
St.  Paul  is  concerned,  is  opposed  by  the  unequivocal 
terms  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  rank  of  Christ.  It 
is  a  very  high  position  in  the  universe  which  the  Apos- 
tle attributes  to  Jesus,  but  nothing  like  the  rank  re- 
quired by  the  Trinitarian  hypothesis.  Dr.  Huntington 
tells  us  that  in  Scripture  "  the  Eternal  Son  is  seen  re- 
maining rooted  forever  in  the  Godhead,  having  the 
basis  of  his  being  unchanged,  deific,  uncreated."  No 
such  language,  and  no  language  that  has  such  meaning, 
can  be  drawn  from  the  Chief  Apostle.  Dr.  Neander 
confesses  that  Paul  "  ascribes  a  truly  divine  yet  derived 
being  to  Christ."  It  is  plain  that  Paul  believed  in  his 


132  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE   DOCTRINE 

pre-existence,  but  there  is  no  passage  in  which  it  is 
stated  that  he  existed  from  eternity. 

According  to  Paul  he  is  the  Son  of  God,  not  God 
the  Son.  Whether  the  Apostle  believed  the  human 
soul  was  made  of  any  different  substance  originally 
than  was  given  to  Christ,  we  cannot  determine  from 
his  Epistles ;  but  he  certainly  teaches  that  all  really 
Christian  persons  receive  into  their  natures  the  same 
effluence  from  God  with  which  Christ  is  filled,  and  be- 
come Sons  of  God  substantially  as  he  is.  He  teaches 
that  Christ  in  his  pre-existent  life  was  the  highest  ob- 
ject of  the  Divine  affection,  a  love  that  implies  depend- 
ence and  a  return  of  filial  emotion  and  obedience.  He 
was  the  image  of  God,  the  one  highest  and  perfect 
form  for  receiving  and  transmitting  the  rays  of  the  In- 
finite glory.  Through  him,  Paul  declares,  God  cre- 
ated all  things  ;  but  it  has  been  seriously  doubted 
whether  he  means  by  this  that  Christ  was  an  instrument 
for  shaping  the  material  world.  It  has  been  supposed 
that  he  referred  rather*to  souls,  and  the  plan  and  gra- 
dations of  the  moral  world,  celestial  and  earthly.  This 
point  must  always  remain  in  dispute,  as  there  are  not 
passages  enough  to  settle  it.  But  the  verses  in  Colos- 
sians,  where  the  statement  is  made  with  more  fulness 
than  elsewhere,  favors  the  latter  view,  since,  in  defining 
the  "  all  things  "  which  were  created  by  Christ,  he  says, 
"  whether  they  be  thrones,  or  dominions,  or  principali- 
ties, or  powers." 

There  is  hardly  a  page  of  St.  Paul's  writing  that 
does  not  declare  or  imply  a  separate,  and  therefore 
finite  consciousness,  reason,  and  will  in  Christ,  not 
merely  when  on  the  earth,  and  in  a  human  form,  but 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  133 

prior  to  his  advent,  and  after  his  ascension.  For  it  is 
not  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  as  ordinarily  taught 
in  the  Church  which  Paul  promulged.  God  did  not 
take  our  nature  and  undergo  humiliation  and  taste  mor- 
tal woe.  He  expressed  his  love  in  yielding  the  dearest 
object  of  his  unfathomable  affection  to  the  buffets  and 
hatreds  of  the  world  and  the  doom  of  evil  in  the  flesh. 
This  was  God's  sacrifice,  — "  he  spared  not  his  own 
Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all."  And  through 
him,  the  'consummate  form,  and  thus  the  largest  channel 
in  the  universe,  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  God  poured  re- 
deeming life  into  humanity  on  earth. 

There  are  two  or  three  passages  in  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  of  which  the  Greek  reading  or  pointing  is  not 
settled  among  scholars,  that  have  been  made  very  prom- 
inent in  the  controversy  as  to  the  position  of  Jesus  in 
the  universe.  Too  much  importance,  we  think,  has 
been  accorded  to  them.  They  would  still  be  doubtful 
passages,  if  rendered  as  the  Trinitarians  demand ;  and 
doubtful  passages,  in  unsystematic  writings  like  the 
Pauline  letters,  must  be  construed  in  harmony  with 
clear  and  positive  ones.  As  to  the  power  and  rank  of 
Christ,  we  have  from  Paul  positive  declarations  con- 
cerning his  origin,  his  resurrection  and  the  rank  re- 
ceived after  it,  and  his  position  after  the  Mediatorial 
mission  is  finished,  which  are  conclusive  against  the 
doctrine  of  his  underived  being,  infinite  Lordship,  and 
.  Eternal  coequality. 

Paul  tells  us  explicitly,  in  the  first  chapter  of  Colos- 
sians,  that  he  is  "the  first-born  of  every  creature." 
Whether  this  means  the  first-born  creature  of  God,  or 
first-born  being  before  every  creature,  it  settles  the  fact 


134  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE   DOCTRINE 

that  Paul  did  not  hold  to  the  Eternal  Existence  of  Je- 
sus.* There  is  no  other  passage  in  which  the  Apostle 
deals  with  this  question. 

Second,  as  to  the  resurrection,  it  is  always  declared 
to  have  been  wrought  by  the  power  of  God  acting 
upon  Christ  as  upon  a  finite  nature,  —  Christ  as  one 
unmixed  personality  on  one  hand,  and  God  as  one 
quickening  power  on  the  other.  On  the  Trinitarian 
hypothesis,  Christ  should  have  raised  himself,  and  as- 
cended by  the  force  of  his  native  Godhead.  But  this 
is  never  asserted  in  Paul's  pages,  as  it  would  have  been 
if  he  had  held  the  underived,  intrinsic  Deity  of  Christ's 
nature.  As  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  hints,  so  Paul 
seems  to  declare,  that  Jesus,  as  a  reward  for  his  earthly 
service  and  suffering,  was  lifted  by  the  Infinite  love  to  a 
greater  height  of  glory  in  the  heavens  than  before  his 
assumption  of  the  flesh.  For  the  Apostle  speaks  to 
the  Ephesians  of  the  working  of  God's  mighty  power, 
"  which  he  wrought  in  Christ  when  he  raised  him  from 
the  dead,  and  set  him  at  his  own  right  hand  in  the 
heavenly  places,  far  above  all  principality,  and  power, 
and  might,  and  dominion,  and  every  name  that  is 
named,  not  only  in  this  world,  but  also  in  that  which 
is  to  come."  And  once  more,  to  the  Philippians,  after 


*  As  Tertullian  wrote,  perhaps  with  this  passage  in  view,  in 
the  third  century,  before  such  Orthodoxy  as  that  of  the  New  Eng- 
land standards  had  been  dreamed  :  "  God  is  both  a  Father,  and 
also  a  Judge,  yet  not  therefore  always  a  Father  and  a  Judge  be- 
cause always  God.  Since  neither  could  he  be  a  Father  before 
a  Son,  nor  a  Judge  before  Sin ;  but  there  was  a  time  when 
both  Sin  and  Son  were  not,  which  make  the  Lord  a  Judge  and 
Father." 


OF   THE   NEW    TESTAMENT.  135 

referring  to  his  death  on  the  cross,  he  says,  "Where- 
fore, God  also  hath  highly  exalted  him,  and  given  him 
a  name  which  is  above  every  name  ;  that  at  the  name 
of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven, 
and  things  in  earth,  and  things  under  the  earth ;  and 
that  every  tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father." 

Dr.  Huntington  quotes  from  the  first  of  these  passa- 
ges, and  asks,  "  Can  this  be  a  creature  ?  "  What  else, 
we  answer,  if  he  was  raised  from  the  dead  by  God's 
power,  and  lifted  to  the  position  far  above  "  all  princi- 
pality and  power,"  &c.  ?  He  quotes  part  of  the  second 
passage,  and  exclaims,  "  Is  not  this  a  being  to  whom 
prayer  is  to  be  offered  ?  "  Praise  certainly,  Paul  would 
answer  him,  if  it  be  offered  "  to  the  glory  of  God  the 
Father,"  and  not  to  an  underived,  coequal  Infinite.  If 
he  were  that,  it  would  not  be  said  that  God  had  highly 
exalted  him.  For  it  is  not  the  human  nature,  but  the 
veritable  soul  of  Christ,  that  is  thus  exalted.  It  is  after 
the  resurrection,  when  the  flesh  and  its  limitations  are 
put  off. 

And  thirdly,  Paul  expressly  tells  us  what  the  final 
relation  of  Jesus  to  God  is  to  be,  after  every  knee  has 
bowed  to  him.  In  the  loth  chapter  of  the  first  letter 
to  the  Corinthians,  he  speaks  of  the  resurrection  and 
the  close  of  Christ's  administrative  office.  "  Then  com- 
eth  the  end,  when  he  shall  have  delivered  up  the  king- 
dom to  God,  even  the  Father And  when  all 

things  shall  be  subdued  unto  him,  then  shall  the  Son 
also  himself  be  subject  unto  him  that  put  all  things 
under  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all."  If  Scripture 
alone  were  the  source  of  our  creeds,  can  one  think  it 


136  TRINITARIANISM   NOT    THE    DOCTRINE 

possible  that  modern  Trinitarianism  could  survive  this 
passage  ?  Christ  becomes  visibly  subject  forever,  and 
God  the  Father  is  all  in  all !  Dr.  Huntington  quotes 
this  passage,  and  thus  explains  it:  "The  Son,  in  his 
character  of  Sonship,  is  retaken,  so  to  speak,  into  the 
everlasting,  almighty,  ineffable,  undivided  One,  where 
the  distinctions  of  office  which  had  aided  us  so  greatly 
in  apprehending  the  glorious  Trinity  are  lost  to  our 
sight."  This  is  the  most  astounding  specimen  of  exe- 
gesis which  has  ever  fallen  under  my  observation. 
Those  that  tamper  with  Scripture  by  rationalistic  dis- 
sections are  generally  referred,  by  strict  Orthodox  be- 
lievers, to  the  woes  denounced  at  the  close  of  the  Book 
of  Revelation  against  those  who  add  to  or  take  from 
the  words  of  the  book.  Where  is  anything  said  or  sug- 
gested in  15th  Corinthians  about  the  melting  away  of 
the  Trinity,  and  the  reabsorption  of  the  Son  into  the 
absolute  Godhead  ?  It  is  fiction.  With  such  license  as 
that,  a  man  might  go  through  Scripture  and  strike  out 
every  instance  where  "  not "  occurs,  thus  reversing  the 
morals  of  the  New  Testament.  In  fact,  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton  does  precisely  reverse  the  sense  of  Paul  by  his  in- 
terpretation, or  rather  metamorphosis,  of  the  passage. 
Paul  says  that  Christ  stands  higher  in  administrative 
rank  before  the  close  of  his  mediatorship  than  he  will 
afterwards.  Dr.  Huntington  makes  him  say  that  he 
stands  lower  now,  and  is  to  go  higher  then.  Or  rather, 
he  makes  Paul  say,  that  the  Christ,  known  once  on 
earth,  is  to  be  annihilated ;  for  when  the  Son  is  retaken 
into  the  undivided  Godhead,  where  is  the  once  visible 
Christ  to  be  found  ?  Of  course,  Trinitarianism  requires 
some  such  wrenching  of  this  clear  and  fatal  statement 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  137 

of  Paul.  And  yet  only  on  the  third  page  after  this 
handling  of  the  Unitarian  Apostle's  affirmation,  we  find 
Dr.  Huntington,  in  reference  to  a  Unitarian  theory  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  which  he  does  not  fairly  state,  exclaim- 
ing, "  How  desperate  the  shifts  of  a  determined  theory ! " 

We  have  thus  grouped  and  surveyed  the  evidence 
afforded  by  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  for  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Of  course,  within  such  re- 
stricted limits,  it  has  been  impossible  to  treat  any 
portion  of  the  subject  in  an  exhaustive  way.  But  I 
have  carefully  abstained  from  any  excessive  statement 
in  presenting  the  testimony  as  it  had  revealed  itself  to 
my  reading.  And  perhaps  a  better  conception  can  be 
gained  of  the  quality  and  force  of  the  warrant  or  oppo- 
sition in  regard  to  the  doctrine  by  a  general  outlook 
over  its  field,  than  by  microscopic  scrutiny  of  passages 
drawn  at  random  from  its  various  books.  We  can  tell 
in  such  a  way,  at  once,  whether  any  passages  jut  up  from 
the  broad  landscape  of  its  teachings,  compelling  us  to 
accept  the  Trinity  of  God  as  its  dominant  idea  and  rev- 
elation. 

We  have  found  no  such  passages  there.  There  is 
no  such  word  as  Trinity  in  its  chapters.  There  is  no 
statement  that  the  unity  of  God  is  composed  of  three 
elements  or  personalities,  or  diverges  into  three  forms. 
None  of  the  words  or  phrases  in  which  Dr.  Huntington 
clothes  his  faith,  or  in  which  any  Orthodox  Trinitarian- 
ism  has  been  or  can  be  defined,  is  to  be  found  in  its 
whole  compass  (with  the  exception  of  one  verse,  con- 
fessed by  Trinitarians  to  be  spurious).  The  words 
"  Triune  name  "  are  not  there,  nor  "  Three  in  one,"  nor 


138  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

"  Eternal  Son,"  nor  "  consubstantial,"  nor  "  equal  in 
power  and  glory "  applied  to  God  and  Christ  and  the 
Holy  Spirit,  nor  "  rooted  forever  in  the  Godhead,"  nor 
"  God  the  Son,"  nor  " Very  God  of  Very  God,"  nor 
"  Light  of  Light,"  nor  "  eternally  begotten  of  the  Fa- 
ther," nor  "coequal  persons,"  nor  "threefold  distinc- 
tion." There  is  no  offering  of  praise  to  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost,  and  no  direct  address  to  them  in  any 
formula  of  invocation  or  appeal.  The  last  document  of 
the  New  Testament,  the  Gospel  of  John,  was  written 
about  as  late  as  the  year  100,  so  that  the  Christian 
Church  had  then  been  nearly  seventy  years  —  two  gen- 
erations —  under  the  guidance  of  Apostolic  teaching ; 
and  yet  no  combination  of  words  appears  in  the  compass 
of  the  New  Testament  books,  such  as  is  required  to  be 
signed  in  every  Orthodox  theological  school  of  Christen- 
dom, and  is  expected  in  the  ascriptions  and  doxologies  of 
worship  in  the  vast  majority  of  the  churches  of  all  lands. 
A  man  has  to  go  outside  the  Bible  for  all  the  expressions 
in  which  Dr.  Huntington  announces  the  foundation  of 
his  newly-acquired  faith.  And  if  a  man  says,  "  I  be- 
lieve in  the  Bible ;  I  accept  the  whole  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament; but  do  not  believe  in  the  Tripersonality  of 
God ; "  the  theologian  who  pronounces  his  faith  unsound, 
or  incomplete,  must  set  up  not  merely  his  interpretations 
of  the  Bible,  but  his  bold,  explicit  additions  to  it,  as  the 
tests  of  truth  and  fellowship. 

Dr.  Huntington  in  one  passage  of  his  discourse,  the 
most  emphatic  passage  in  it,  for  he  prints  it  all  in  italics, 
after  speaking  of  some  of  the  declarations  in  the  New 
Testament  concerning  Jesus,  requests  a  Unitarian  to  put 
this  question  to  himself:  —  "  Whatever  I  may  make  these 


OF    THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  139 

words  mean  now,  would  they  ever  have  been  chosen  and 
used  in  the  first  place  on  any  other  'belief  than  that  Christ 
is  properly  and  truly  Divine,  Eternal,  Almiajity,  as  the 
Church  of  his  Heaven-guided  people  has  believed  and 
taught  ?  "  We  take  up  this  challenge,  deliberately  and 
without  hesitation.  We  seek  its  test,  and  we  reverse  its 
statement  precisely.  We  say  the  Scriptural  affirma- 
tions and  omissions,  as  we  have  quoted  or  stated  them, 
are  such  that  they  could  not  possibly  have  been  made 
by  teachers  who  believe,  with  the  modern  Protestant 
Church,  that  Christ  is  one  of  three  persons  in  the  God- 
head, and  that  he  is  Eternal  and  Almighty,  or  of  higher 
rank  than  the  appointed  medium  and  minister  of  Infinite 
Grace  to  souls  who  are  to  partake  of  his  very  substance, 
and  be  sons  of  God  in  fellowship  with  him. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Triunity  is  not  a  doctrine  of  the 
New  Testament.  Some  of  the  wisest  Trinitarian  schol- 
ars and  theologians  have  confessed  that  it  cannot  be  de- 
rived, in  any  of  its  accepted  and  required  forms  to-day, 
from  the  express  language  of  the  Evangelists  and  Apos- 
tles. They  confess  that  it  must  be  reasoned  out,  inferred, 
developed  from  intimations  in  the  New  Testament.  In- 
timations !  That  is,  when  the  doctrine  first  broke  upon 
the  awe-struck  souls  of  men  who  had  been  Unitarians 
before,  they  did  not  state  it  clearly ;  they  did  not  state 
at  all  that  there  are  three  equal  Divine  beings ;  they  did 
not  utter  in  any  logical,  lyrical,  impassioned,  or  reveren- 
tial sentence,  that  those  three  are  one  !  The  most  learned 
Church  historian  of  modern  times,  Dr.  Neander,  of  Ger- 
many, has  not  hesitated  to  speak  of  the  Trinity  which  is 
now  maintained,  as  an  idea  to  which  the  reflective  mind 
has  sought  to  elevate  itself,  rather  than  a  clear  publica- 


140  TRINITARIANISM  NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

tion  of  the  Bible.  Dr.  Huntington  quotes  this  admirable 
man  as  declaring  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the 
fundamental  article  of  the  Christian  faith,  —  the  essen- 
tial contents  of  Christianity  summed  up  in  brief.  This 
is  another  instance  of  a  strange  carelessness  in  the  use  of 
authorities,  in  which  Dr.  Huntington,  writing  a  discourse 
so  important,  should  not  have  indulged  himself.  Dr.  Ne- 
ander  does  say  that  he  recognizes  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  "  the  essential  contents  of  Christianity,  summed 
up  in  brief,"  that  is,  summed  up  in  human  phrase  and 
shaping;  but  he  expressly  states  on  the  same  page, 
(History  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church,  Vol.  I. 
p.  572,)  three  sentences  before  this  declaration,  exactly 
the  opposite  of  Prof.  Huntington's  quotation.  He  says  : 
"This  doctrine  does  not  belong  to  the  fundamental 
articles  of  the  Christian  faith;  as  appears  sufficiently 
evident  from  the  fact,  that  it  is  expressly  held  forth  in 
no  one  particular  passage  of  the  New  Testament ;  for 
the  only  one  in  which  this  is  done,  the  passage  relating 
to  the  three  that  bear  record  (1  John  v.  7),  is  undoubt- 
edly spurious,  and  in  its  ungenuine  shape  testifies  to  the 
fact,  how  foreign  such  a  collocation  is  from  the  style  of 
the  New  Testament  Scriptures.  We  find  in  the  New 
Testament  no  other  fundamental  article  besides  that  of 
which  the  Apostle  Paul  says,  that  other  foundation  can 
no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  the  annunciation  of  Jesus 
as  the  Messiah ;  and  Christ  himself  designates  as  the 
foundation  of  his  religion  the  faith  in  the  only  true  God, 
and  in  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  hath  sent."*  Dr.  Nean- 

*  While  these  pages  are  passing  through  the  press,  we  notice 
that  attention  has  been  called  by  a  well-known  and  accurate  schol- 
ar, through  the  columns  of  the  "  Christian  Register  "  of  January 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  141 

der  was  a  Trinitarian,  —  of  a  very  different  type,  how- 
ever, from  the  common  American  Trinitarians.  He  be- 
lieved that  his  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  properly  devel- 
oped out  of  the  Bible.  But  in  his  judgment  it  is  there  so 
dim  and  latent,  that  it  cannot  be  accounted  a  fundamental 
article  of  the  Christian  religion.  We  leave  that  point  to 
be  settled  between  the  first  volume  of  his  Church  His- 
tory and  Dr.  Huntington,  who  has  unfortunately,  but  of 
course  not  intentionally,  misquoted  it ;  while  we  repeat 
our  affirmation  that  the  doctrine  as  now  held,  and  as  in- 
terpreted by  Prof.  Huntington,  is  not  only  not  'clearly 
stated  in  the  New  Testament ;  —  the  elements  of  it  are 
not  there ;  —  and  that  it  is  impossible  it  could  be  there 
at  all,  crowded  as  those  pages  are  with  references  to 
God,  and  Christ,  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  unless  it  should 
He  there  clear  as  the  sunlight,  as  clear  at  least  as  the 
creeds  of  Christendom. 

I  have  no  time  and  no  desire  to  follow  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton  in  the  argument  he  has  made  to  show  how  necessary 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  to  the  other  salient  features 
of  the  Orthodox  theology.  Perhaps  it  is  necessary.  If 
it  falls,  very  likely  the  modern  interpretation  of  the 
Atonement  and  Divine  government  must  fall.  If  so,  it 
is  only  necessary  to  consider  the  Scriptural  sources  for 
that  doctrine,  and  the  work  of  criticism  upon  modern 
Orthodoxy  is  accomplished. 

21st,  to  this  mistake  of  Dr.  Huntington  in  quoting  from  Neander. 
The  accomplished  critic  shows  also,  that,  in  the  American  trans- 
lation of  Neander,  the  word  "  strictly  "  is  introduced  into  the  text, 
thus  weakening  a  little  the  force  of  Neander's  declaration.  The 
American  version  makes  the  passage  read,  "  This  doctrine  does 
not  strictly  belong  to  the  fundamental  articles  of  the  Christian 
faith,"  while  Neander  wrote  unqualifiedly,  "  This  doctrine  does 
not  belong,"  &c. 


142  TRINITARIANISM   NOT   THE   DOCTRINE 

But  I  must  say  a  word,  before  closing,  upon  two  or 
three  intimations  in  Dr.  Huntington's  discourse  concern- 
ing the  method  of  testing  the  Scripture  evidence  for  the 
Trinity.  It  is  often  affirmed  by  Orthodox  theologians, 
that  opposition  of  the  heart,  hostility  to  divine  grace, 
blinds  the  intellect  to  the  evidence  in  the  Bible  for  the 
Deity  of  Christ  and  the  Trinity  of  the  Godhead.  This 
position  is  one  of  amazing  arrogance ;  yes,  I  am  ready 
to  say,  of  intolerable  insolence.  Used  by  one  student  of 
the  Bible  to  another,  in  a  course  of  serious  investigation 
as  to  the  teaching  of  Scripture,  it  is  an  insult  as  manifest 
as  the  smiting  of  the  face,  or  any  other  gross  personal 
indignity.  For  one  I  will  never  allow  it  for  a  moment, 
from  any  man  who  addresses  to  me  an  argument,  or 
with  whom  I  am  conducting  an  honest  discussion. 

It  surprised  and  pained  me,  in  reading  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton's  discourse,  to  find  him  verging  to  this  position,  and 
using  language,  now  and  then,  that  can  hardly  be  con- 
strued into  any  other  significance.  He  speaks  of  seeing 
the  truth  of  Christ's  Deity  in  Scripture,  "which  was 
lying  all  the  time  plain  and  persuasive  to  the  eye," 
"  through  a  happier  admission  of  God's  grace,"  and  de- 
clares that,  to  all  the  ordinary  objections  of  science  and 
logic,  the  believer  has  only  to  answer,  "  I  know  in  whom 
I  have  believed,"  and  then  may  quote  such  words  as 
"  the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  because  they  are  spiritually  discerned."  In  a 
previous  volume,  "  Sermons  for  the  People,"  page  265, 
a  similar  indignity  is  offered  to  Unitarian  students  of 
Scripture  by  the  contemptuous  and  insufferable  state- 
ment that  our  interpretations  of  passages  that  refer  to 
Christ  "  will  satisfy,  till  some  special  exigency  of  spirit- 
ual experience  dissolves  them  in  its  potent  alembic." 


OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  143 

Does  Dr.  Huntington  mean  that  the  constitution  of 
the  Godhead,  whether  the  Infinite  is  one  or  three,  is  a 
question  to  be  spiritually  discerned  ?  Is  he  willing,  or 
not,  to  stand  by  the  fair,  full,  exhaustive  testimony  of 
Scripture,  logically  distributed  and  combined?  And 
when  none  of  the  words,  affirmations,  praises,  or  prayers, 
demanded  by  the  Trinity,  are  found  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  fountain  of  all  our  external  authority  for  test- 
ing what  Christianity  is,  will  he  retreat  from  the  terrific 
force  of  the  facts,  and  advise  a  partisan  of  the  doctrine 
to  retreat  into  the  position,  that  he  knows,  internally,  that 
Christ  never  began  to  be,  —  that  he  is  sure,  by  an  in- 
ward witness,  that  the  Godhead  is  composed  of 

"  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son, 
And  God  the  Spirit,  three  in  one  "  ? 

This  is  what  his  expressions  mean,  if  they  mean  any- 
thing. Let  us  refuse  to  believe  that  he  deliberately  puts 
such  an  unmanly,  arrogant  sense  into  them,  but  that  they 
are  used  loosely,  with  no  intention  of  affirming  so  gross 
and  repulsive  an  assumption. 

The  doctrine  of  Trinity,  or  strict  unity,  is  an  external 
doctrine,  to  be  tested  by  the  logical  meaning  of  Scrip- 
ture. An  abandoned  man,  if  his  intellect  is  clear,  and 
his  reason  unprejudiced,  is  competent  to  decide  that  ques- 
tion. Spiritual  things  are  spiritually  discerned.  But 
spiritual  things,  brethren,  belong  alike  to  Trinitarian  and 
Unitarian  schemes  of  faith.  They  are  the  internal 
things  of  our  poor  dogmas.  And  by  the  inward  eye, 
and  the  sensitive  spiritual  affections,  we  come  into  the 
communion  of  the  Spirit,  the  fellowship  of  Christ,  the 
love  of  the  Father,  though  we  never  can  harmonize 
their  relations  logically,  in  a  conception  of  the  Infinite 
Being. 


DR.  HUNTINGTON  ON  THE  TRINITY. 


[From  the  Monthly  Keligious  Magazine,  February,  I860.] 


WE  have  endeavored  to  give  our  readers,  in  another 
department  of  the  Magazine,*  a  view  of  Dr.  Huntington's 
argument  in  favor  of  the  tripersonality  of  the  object  of 
Christian  worship.  Many  of  them  will  read  the  volume 
itself,  and  see  the  argument  in  its  whole  breadth  and 
fulness.  The  main  points  are  the  following. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  or  rather  Tripersonality, 
for  that  is  the  form  which  it  assumes  in  his  statement, 
and  the  two  terms  are  by  no  means  synonymous,  has 
with  trifling  exceptions  been  held  by  Christian  believers 
ever  and  everywhere.  Though  truth  is  not  determined 
by  majorities,  yet  it  is  hardly  credible  that  the  great 
Head  of  the  Church,  who  promised  to  be  with  it  always, 
would  suffer  it  to  embrace  a  delusion  so  wide-spread, 
and  running  through  all  the  ages.  To  suppose  this  is 
painful,  not  to  say  irreverent  towards  the  Providence 
that  has  ever  led  and  watched  the  true  Christian  Israel. 

This  doctrine,  or  the  system  of  which  it  forms  a  part, 
is  essential  to  render  Christianity  practically  an  efficient 
and  vital  power  in  the  world  and  in  the  human  soul. 
Leave  this  out,  and  man  fails  to  see  the  extent  of  sin 


*  See  Magazine  for  February,  1860,  page  130. 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY.  145 

and  its  terrible  evil ;  piety  wastes,  the  Church  declines, 
enthusiasm  is  chilled,  prayer  loses  its  efficacy,  and  the 
world  reaps  an  easy  harvest.  Restore  it,  and  the  Church 
becomes  aggressive ;  the  sinner  is  convinced  and  finds 
peace  in  believing,  and  devotion  revives  again. 

This  doctrine,  and  the  system  to  which  it  belongs, 
give  unity  to  the  Bible,  and  make  all  its  disclosures 
and  utterances  fall  into  one  majestic  and  consistent 
plan.  From  Genesis  to  the  Apocalypse,  the  great 
themes  of  Incarnation  and  Redemption  are  all-harmo- 
nizing and  make  all  difficulties  of  exegesis  to  vanish, 
while  to  the  Anti-Trinitarian  they  are  insurmountable, 
or  require  unnatural  or  labored  explanations. 

These  three  heads  seem  to  us  to  sum  up  the  argu- 
ment, which  in  the  Sermon  is  drawn  out  in  various 
detail,  and  with  great  rhetorical  skill.  This  doctrine 
of  threeness  in  the  Divine  Nature  has  been  the  almost 
universally  accepted  one  through  all  the  ages  of  faith : 
it  is  necessary  in  order  to  make  Christianity  an  efficient, 
working,  and  renewing  power ;  and  it  makes  the  Bible 
a  consistent  and  symmetrical  whole. 

These  tests,  if  they  would  bear  examination,  would 
certainly  be  conclusive.  To  present  them  fairly  and 
plainly,  rather  than  to  controvert  them,  is  our  purpose 
now.  But  as  this  is  not  our  view  of  the  Christian  his- 
tory, economy,  and  revelation,  and  as  the  whole  subject 
goes  to  the  very  life  and  essence  of  Christianity,  and 
the  deeps  of  the  Christian  experience,  we  ask  the  com- 
pany of  our  readers  while  we  take  them,  not  into  an- 
other controversy  about  the  Trinity,  but  to  some  points 
of  observation,  from  which  in  a  light  somewhat  different 
this  great  field  of  truth  may  lie  before  us. 
10 


146  DR.   HUNTINGDON    ON    THE    TRINITY. 

I.  It  is  a  pretty  sure  indication  of  corruption  in  the- 
ology when  its  service  requires  of  us  to  wrest  language 
from  its  legitimate  use,' and  employ  it  in  the  Church  as 
Talleyrand  did  in  the  State,  to  conceal  or  to  obscure 
thought  rather  than  reveal  it.  Dr.  Huntington  does 
not  consciously  do  this,  but  any  system  of  tripersonality 
must.  Everybody  has  an  idea,  till  it  is  dissipated  by 
metaphysics,  of  what  a^person  is.  A  person  is  an  indi- 
vidual being,  having  his  own  separate  self-conscious- 
ness ;  and  tio  be  personally  known  to  us,  he  must  be 
revealed  to  us  in  living  form.  To  say  that  God  exists 
in  three  persons  is  to  say  that  there  are  three  self-con- 
scious beings,  and  the  conception  is  produced  instantly 
in  the  mind  of  three  Gods.  You  may  protest  that  you 
are  not  using  language  in  its  common  acceptation ;  but 
what  does  the  protest  avail,  if  you  go  right  on  and 
assign  to  the  three  persons  such  offices  and  functions  as 
inevitably  beget  the  notion  of  three  self-conscious  actors 
in  the  believer's  mind  ?  Is  it  the  words  on  your  lips, 
or  is  it  the  inmost  thought  of  your  heart,  that  God  re- 
gards in  worship  ?  We  may  say  "  one  God  "  with  the 
mouth  all  day  and  all  night,  and  yet  if  the  attitude  of 
the  soul  within  is  towards  three  Persons  each  with  an 
"  independent  self-consciousness,"  and  each  having  Di- 
vine attributes,  then  the  motions  of  the  mouth  are  as 
empty  sounds,  while  the  act  of  the  soul  is  an  unblest 
idolatry. 

The  doctrine  of  threeness  in  the  Divine  Nature  is 
held  now,  and  has  been  held  from  remote  ages,  by 
those  who  do  not  divide  the  Divine  Personality.  We 
never  can  know  anything  of  God,  except  so  far  as  he 
becomes  humanized  to  our  human  conceptions.  This 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY.  147 

seems  plain.  Man  is  his  image  and  partakes  of  his 
nature.  All  that  we  say  of  God,  his  mercy,  his  justice, 
his  holiness,  his  goodness,  mean  nothing  to  us,  except 
so  far  forth  as  there  is  something  in  our  own  being  that 
answers  to  those  great  ideas.  Just  so  likewise  of  his 
unity,  his  threeness,  and  his  personality.  There  is 
ground  for  these  in  our  own  nature,  or  we  could  not 
even  receive  a  revelation  respecting  them.  Man's  na- 
ture is  triune.  He  is  love,  intellect,  and  active  power  : 
heart,  head,  hand  ;  —  as  Sir  William  Hamilton  puts  it 
in  his  clear  and  masterly  analysis,  feeling,  cognition, 
and  conation :  the  sole  ground  in  man  whence  he  can 
arise  to  the  august  conception  of  the  Divine  Threeness, 
—  the  eternal  Love,  the  eternal  Wisdom  or  Word,  and 
their  eternal  processions  of  Power.  We  may  strain 
after  something  about  God  when  there  is  nothing  in 
man  to  receive  it :  it  will  not  even  fall  within  the  laws 
of  thought ;  we  only  beat  the  air  and  hear  the  "  clatter  " 
of  our  own  intellectual  machinery.  That  God  is  Love, 
Wisdom,  and  Power,  all  existing  in  one  self-conscious 
being  or  person,  creating  man  for  feeling,  knowing,  and 
doing,  comes  at  once  into  our  faith  that  puts  us  in  com- 
munion with  the  Supreme  in  just  the  degree  that  we 
will  suffer  him  to  mould  us  into  his  own  glorious  image. 
II.  It  is  the  concession  of  candid  Trinitarians  that 
the  Tripersonality  is  not  found  expressly  in  the  New 
Testament,  but  was  "  developed  "  afterwards  by  the 
Christian  Church.  "  This  doctrine  does  not  strictly 
belong  to  the  fundamental  articles  of  the  Christian 
faith,  as  appears  sufficiently  evident  from  the  fact  that 
it  is  expressly  held  forth  in  no  one  particular  passage 
of  the  New  Testament,"  is  the  language  of  Neander. 


148  DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY. 

"The  unfolding  of  the  mystery  is  committed  to  the 
scientific  activity  of  the  Church,"  is  the  language  of 
Olshausen.  But  that  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  essential 
divinity  is  set  forth  in  the  New  Testament,  yea,  that  it 
breaks  from  its  pages  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  is  the  almost 
unanimous  agreement  of  Christian  believers.  In  the 
Incarnation,  the  Life,  and  the  Mediation  of  Christ  there 
is  the  full  expression  of  the  Godhead,  the  essential  Di- 
vinity coming  down  into  visible  personality  for  the  sal- 
vation of  man.  Never  are  we  invited  to  come  to  the 
Father  by  climbing  round  the  personality  of  the  Son. 
That  there  are  eternal  deeps  of  the  Divine  Nature  that 
we  may  never  fathom,  is  only  saying  that  we  are  weak 
and  finite.  That  all  which  we  can  know  or  understand 
of  God  we  have  in  Christ,  the  incarnate  and  revealing 
Word,  is  his  own  declaration  again  and  again.  "  No 
man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time ;  the  only-begotten 
Son  that  dwelleth  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath 
declared  him."  "All  that  the  Father  hath  is  mine" 
"  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father."  That 
the  essential  Divinity  in  Christ  is  not  a  person  sepa- 
rated from  the  Father,  another  person,  but  consubstan- 
tial  with  the  Father,  and  revealing  the  whole  Godhead 
in  one  glorious  person,  "  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead 
bodily,"  is  plain  even  in  the  letter ;  but  in  the  only 
system  of  interpretation  self-consistent  throughout, — 
we  mean  the  New  Church  law  of  analogies,  —  this 
central  truth  of  the  New  Testament  appears  like  the 
sun  shining  in  his  strength. 

And  mark  with  what  plainness  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
described  as  the  gift  of  Christ,  the  procession  of  life 
and  power  coming  from  him  alone :  "  He  shall  bap- 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  149 

tize  you  with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with  fire."  "/will 
send  you  another  Comforter,  even  the  Spirit  of  truth." 
"  He  breathed  on  them,  saying,  *  Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Spirit.' "  The  exigencies  of  theology  must  be  hard- 
pressing  indeed,  that  can  turn  this  sweet  and  blessed 
doctrine  aside,  of  a  cleansing  and  comforting  power 
pulsing  into  the  soul  from  a  Divine  Saviour,  brought 
near  to  the  disciple  by  personal  communion  and  lowly 
faith,  for  that  strange  riddle  of  the  understanding,  a 
third  person  in  the  Trinity  coming  and  going  between 
God  and  man ! 

III.  The  first  historical  development  of  Christianity 
was  in  strict  accordance  with  this  conception  of  one 
God  in  one  person,  and  that  person  brought  near  to 
man  in  the  Divine  Saviour.  The  Pentecostal  scene 
fulfilled  the  promise  of  the  Comforter.  It  was  not 
produced  by  preaching  Tripersonality  and  a  vicarious 
atonement.  It  was  produced  by  preaching  Christ  and 
the  resurrection  with  repentance  and  remission  of  sins  ; 
and  as  for  the  Holy  Spirit  which  came  as  a  baptism 
of  fire,  it  was  said  of  the  glorified  Saviour,  "  He  hath 
shed  forth  this  which  ye  now  see  and  hear."  So  the 
first  conversions  were  made  and  the  first  churches  were 
built  up.  When  Paul  looked  up  through  the  opened 
heavens,  and  sought  the  source  of  that  power  which 
smote  him  to  the  earth  and  overwhelmed  him  with  self- 
convictions,  the  answer  was,  "  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
whom  thou  persecutest."  They  called  on  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  came.  It  was  the 
Divine  Sphere  of  Light  and  Love  and  Power  brought 
down  to  the  earth  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  turned 
full  upon  man.  The  "  scientific  activity  "  of  the  Church 


150  DR.   HUNTINGDON    ON    THE    TRINITY. 

had  not  yet  begun.  They  simply  looked  up  to  the 
Saviour,  the  God  become  man,  and  "  the  Holy  Ghost 
fell  on  them,"  (a  person  indeed  ?)  and  its  power  rolled 
in  upon  them  in  surges  of  energy,  peace,  and  love. 
And  when  John  was  "  in  the  Spirit,"  and  saw  the  glo- 
rious Theophany,  did  he  see  three  persons  each  claim- 
ing divine  honors,  or  did  he  see  "one  like  unto  the 
Son  of  Man,"  saying,  "I  am  the  First  and  the  Last, 
which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is  to  come,  the 
Almighty  "  ? 

,  No  student  of  history,  we  think,  will  affirm  that  there 
is  the  least  hint  of  tripersonality  in  the  Godhead  in  the 
writings  extant  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers.  Later  down, 
from  A.  D.  175  to  200,  we  have  explicit  statements 
from  Justin  Martyr,  Irenseus,  and  Tertullian  of  the  es- 
sentials of  the  Christian  faith,  and  what  had  "  always 
been  believed  "  in  the  Church.  In  these  the  essential 
Divinity  of  Christ  is  fully  and  affectionately  acknowl- 
edged, the  New  Testament  form,  both  of  language  and 
doctrine,  is  preserved ;  but  there  is  no  lisp  of  triperson- 
ality or  a  substitutive  atonement.  These  old  creeds 
are  refreshing,  for  they  have  the  breath  of  the  morn- 
ing hour.  Irenseus  gives  the  following  as  the  creed 
of  those  "  who  diligently  keep  the  ancient  tradition " : 
"  Believing  in  one  God,  maker  of  Heaven  and  earth, 
and  of  all  things  in  them  by  Christ  Jesus  the  Son  of 
God,  who  through  his  most  eminent  love  towards  his 
creature  underwent  that  generation  which  was  of  a  vir- 
gin, He  by  himself  uniting  man  to  God,  and  having 
suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate  and  being  rose  again 
and  taken  up  in  splendor  will  come  again  in  glory,  a 
Saviour  of  them  that  are  saved  and  a  judge  of  them 


DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  151 

that  are  judged,  sending  into  eternal  fire  the  pervert ers 
of  truth,  and  the  despisers  of  his  Father,  and  of  his 
own  coming  again."  Tertullian  gives  the  following  as 
"  the  rule  that  had  been  observed  and  adhered  to  from 
the  very  beginning  of  the  Gospel," — that  it  was  "prior 
to  all  heretics  that  had  been  in  the  Christian  Church." 
He  believed  "  in  one  God,  and  that  his  Word  was  the 
Son  of  the  one  God ;  who  proceeded  from  him ;  by 
whom  all  things  were  made,  and  without  whom  nothing 
was  made ;  that  he  was  sent  by  or  from  the  Father 
into  the  virgin,  and  from  her  was  born  Man  and  God, 
the  Son  of  Man  and  the  Son  of  God,  and  named  Jesus 
Christ;  that  he  suffered,  that  he  died,  that  he  was 
buried  according  to  the  Scriptures,  and  raised  up  by 
the  Father,  and,  taken  up  into  heaven,  sits  at  the  right 
hand  of  the  Father,  and  will  come  to  judge  the  quick 
and  the  dead ;  who  from  thence  sent,  according  to  his 
promise  from  the  Father,  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Para- 
clete, the  Sanctifier  of  their  faith  who  believe  in  the 
Father  and  Son  and  Holy  Ghost." 

That  in  this  conception  of  Father  and  Son  they  did 
not  separate  the  Divine  Nature  into  persons,  appears 
from  the  following  explanation  of  Tertullian  :  "  Before 
all  things,  God  was  alone  ;  but  not  absolutely  alone,  for 
he  had  with  him  his  own  reason,  since  God  is  a  rational 
being.  This  reason  the  Greeks  call  Logos,  which  word 
we  now  render  Sermo.  AND  THAT  YOU  MAY  MORE 

EASILY  UNDERSTAND  THIS  FROM  YOURSELF,  CONSIDER 
THAT  YOU  WHO  ARE  MADE  IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD 
HAVE  REASON  WITHIN  YOURSELF."  * 

*  But  Tertullian  "  developed  "  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  in 


152  DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY. 

IV.  But  "  the  scientific  activity  of  the  Church  "  was 
at  hand.  Precisely  in  the  degree  that  it  declined  in 
godliness,  and  the  primal  graces  disappeared,  was  the 
Divine  Personality  cloven  and  separated  in  its  author- 
ized formulas.  The  Arian  controversy  raged  for  more 
than  half  a  century,  in  which  the  worst  passions  were 
unloosed  on  both  sides.  What  a  surface  do  these  times 
present,  from  which  to  reflect  the  divine  doctrines,  — 
this  surging  sea  of  human  hatred  and  strife !  The 
Athanasians  ejected  from  the  primitive  creed  the  doc- 
trine of  Divine  Unity,  and  two  persons  began  to  appear. 

opposition  to  the  Monarchians,  and  grazed  the  borders  of  Trithe- 
ism,  taking  ground  from  which  his  successors  developed  it  still 
farther.  He  is  the  transition  point  between  Christian  Mono- 
theism and  Tripersonalism,  and  might  be  claimed  either  way. 
Among  other  analogies,  he  compares  the  Logos  proceeding  out 
of  the  Divine  Essence,  and  becoming  incarnate  in  Christ,  to  a 
stalk  from  its  root,  both  one  in  substance  but  numerically  distinct, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  fruit  upon  the  stalk,  continuously  pro- 
duced through  the  Son.  Yet  again  he  says,  that  each  of  the 
three  may  be  called  God,  though  he  does  not  seem  to  conceive  of 
each  as  having  "an  independent  self-consciousness."  Neander 
represents,  with  admirable  truthfulness,  that  the  unlearned  among 
the  laity,  —  or,  as  Tertullian  says,  "  all  simple  persons,  not  to  say 
ignorant  and  illiterate,  who  form  always  the  majority  of  believ- 
ers,"—  in  whose  Christian  consciousness  the  doctrine  of  Christ's 
divinity  was  the  most  intensely  wrought,  revolted  against  the 
logomachists,  and  would  only  see  the  whole  Godhead  in  Christ. 
They  would  not  receive  at  first  the  "  developed  "  theology  of  the 
metaphysicians,  "  pervaded  by  reflection  and  dialectic  distinc- 
tions." Whether  these  "  simple  persons,"  with  an  intense  Chris- 
tian consciousness  of  a  present  Saviour,  or  the  learned  logo- 
machists and  wranglers,  were  the  more  likely  to  be  right,  is  a 
question  which  admits  of  a  difference  of  opinion.  See  Neander's 
Antignostikus,  Part  III.  Sec.  2. 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY.  153 

The  Arians  ejected  the  doctrine  of  the  Saviour's  essen- 
tial Divinity,  and  God  receded  into  the  dim  and  inac- 
cessible heavens.  Which  party  was  to  prevail  was  long 
doubtful.  The  Church  split  into  nearly  two  equal  fac- 
tions, and  it  seemed  a  drawn  battle,  except  as  one  or 
the  other  allied  itself  with  the  civil  power.  At  length 
the  Tripersonalists  prevailed.  How  they  prevailed, 
and  by  what  process  the  ancient  Anti-Trinitarianism 
"  died  out,"  involve  a  very  interesting  passage  of  his- 
tory, and  one  which  is  calculated  to  make  a  man 
exceedingly  modest  in  urging  an  argument  from  the 
"  quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  ab  omnibus." 

In  the  year  379,  Theodosius  ascended  the  throne  of 
the  eastern  division  of  the  Roman  empire.  He  was  sur- 
named  "  the  Great,"  and  he  well  deserves  the  further 
addition  of  the  Bloody  and  Cruel.  Not  that  he  was  any 
worse  than  Roman  emperors  in  general.  He  was  not 
so  bad,  for  he  never  murdered  his  own  wife,  brothers, 
or  children,  as  other  good  Christian  emperors  were  in 
the  habit  of  doing.  He  had  great  energy  of  character, 
was  thoroughly  orthodox,  and  was  amply  accomplished 
in  all  the  bull-dog  virtues.  An  insurrection  from  a 
trivial  cause  broke  out,  and  was  soon  quelled,  at  Thessa- 
lonica.  The  Emperor  ordered  from  his  officers  seven 
thousand  human  heads  to  expiate  the  crime.  The  popu- 
lace were  invited  into  the  circus  ;  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren assembled  expecting  to  witness  the  games.  They 
were  then  shut  in,  and  the  butchery  went  on  for  three 
hours,  till  the  seven  thousand  heads  had  been  obtained. 
This  was  the  man  who  undertook  to  settle  disputes  in 
theology. 

The    Arians    were    in    possession    of  the    Eastern 


154  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY. 

churches.  The  Patriarch  at  Constantinople,  the  monks, 
the  clergy,  and  the  people,  were  generally  of  that  faith. 
The  odosius  did  not  trouble  himself  to  examine  it.  He 
selected  two  prelates,  Damasus,  Bishop  of  Rome,  and 
Peter,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  and  declared  them  the 
"  treasures  of  true  doctrine."  Those  whose  faith  con- 
formed to  theirs  were  orthodox,  all  others  were  to  be 
rejected  as  outcasts.  Fifteen  edicts  were  issued  suc- 
cessively, continually  increasing  in  severity,  till  the 
heretics  were  hunted  unto  death.  The  Arians  were 
driven,  not  only  from  the  Church,  but  from  their 
homes,  and  languished  and  died  in  exile ;  "  inquisitors 
of  the  faith  "  were  appointed  to  act  as  spies  and  judges 
of  the  secret  opinions  of  men.  The  orthodox  bishops 
fanned  the  flame  of  persecution.  St.  Gregory  was  in- 
stalled as  the  new  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  in  de- 
fiance of  the  whole  flock  instrusted  to  his  care.  The 
brutal  soldiery  attended  in  the  cathedral  to  force  the 
new  bishop  upon  the  people.  Pagans  and  Arians  alike 
were  hunted  down.  The  pagan  peasants  sometimes 
resisted  only  to  be  butchered  on  the  spot.  On  one 
occasion  the  saints  declared,  and  the  judges  admitted, 
that,  in  the  slaughter  within  the  pagan  temples,  devils 
and  angels  entered  into  the  combat,  and  the  idolaters 
merely  shared  the  fate  of  the  infernal  spirits  with  whom 
they  were  leagued.  Uniformity  of  faith  followed.  Tri- 
personality  became,  if  not  the  "  quod  semper,"  yet  un- 
doubtedly the  "  quod  ubique,  quod  ab  omnibus."  * 

Then  followed  the  long,  dreary,  arctic  night  of  the 
Church.     The  litanies  went  up  to  three  persons,  and 

*  Sismondi's  Fall  of  the  Koman  Empire,  pp.  110-112. 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  155 

along  with  them  the  half-stifled  groans  and  half-muffled 
cries  of  oppressed  and  weary  human  nature.  From  the 
cold  regions  or  burning  sands  of  exile,  from  souls  slain 
under  the  altar,  from  the  midst  of  blazing  fagots,  from 
dungeons  under  ground,  from  "  the  Alpine  mountains 
cold,"  went  up  the  prayer,  "  O  Lord,  how  long ! "  while 
from  all  the  cathedrals,  churches,  and  monasteries  went 
up  the  worship  of  Tritheism. 

"But  we  must  remember  that  the  age  was  dark." 
The  age  undoubtedly  was  dark,  and  a  very  pertinent 
question  arises,  —  WHAT  MADE  THE  AGES  DARK  ?  Any 
age  becomes  dark  just  in  the  degree  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  God  is  lost.  Any  age  is  dark  in  proportion 
as  its  worship  becomes  untrue.  The  idea  of  God  is 
vital,  central ;  all  our  other  ideas  are  fitted  to  it  and 
borrow  their  light  from  it,  as  the  planets  replenish  their 
light  and  trick  their  beams  from  the  sun.  All  our 
notions  of  man,  of  duty,  of  neighborly  love,  of  nature 
and  revelation,  of  this  life  and  the  next,  of  regenera- 
tion, redemption,  and  preparation  for  heaven,  are  de- 
termined and  vitalized  by  our  conception  of  God,  for 
that  is  the  inmost  of  all  our  thoughts  and  actions.  Let 
God  be  one,  clear-shining,  ever  near,  and  melting  into 
the  soul,  and  conjunction  with  him  is  unbroken,  and 
worship  is  all-renewing ;  all  other  doctrine  falls  into  its 
true  place  and  order,  and  there  is  unity  everywhere 
else.  Let  our  idea  of  the  One  Infinite  Person  be  lost 
or  blurred  and  dissipated,  and  there  is  darkness  or  lurid 
twilight  on  all  the  landscapes  of  the  mind,  and  there 
is  no  such  worship  or  unison  with  the  Lord  as  cleanses 
away  the  foul  depravity  of  human  nature.  Thus  the 
Christian  idea  of  God,  sinking  down  into  the  ages, 


156  DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY. 

gathered  their  darkness  about  it  deeper  and  deeper, 
and  was  dissipated  and  divided  and  ended  in  confirmed 
Tritheism ;  and  then  there  was  pagan  night  over  all 
the  Church,  and  man  was  a  wolf  to  man. 

We  have  not  time  to  trace  the  influence  of  Tritheism 
on  the  religion  of  modern  Protestantism,  but  we  think 
it  has  been  disastrous  enough.  Under  Protestantism 
it  allied  itself  organically  with  the  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith  alone,  or  putative  instead  of  genuine  right- 
eousness, and  thereby  preserved  all  its  power  to  hurt 
and  to  kill.  To  this  we  owe  all  the  lurking  and  deadly 
Antinomianism  of  Protestantism,  which  these  three  hun- 
dred years  has  separated  faith  from  charity,  religion 
from  life,  ritual  from  goodness,  and  devotion  from 
honesty.  Perhaps,  if  we  summoned  all  the  facts  to 
bear  witness,  we  might  hurt  the  oil  and  the  wine  of 
neighborly  kindness.  They  are  patent  enough  in  the 
history  of  the  sects ;  —  the  stakes  where  the  martyrs 
have  died,  the  dungeons  on  whose  impassive  walls  their 
prayers  have  been  written ;  the  Scotland  heaths  lifting 
up  their  hymns  amid  the  wildness  of  nature  with  alarms 
lest  the  hunters  might  hear ;  the  Bunhill  fields  where 
the  victims  only  found  peace ;  the  death-penalties  on 
the  statute-book  wiped  off  within  the  memory  of  living 
men ;  *  Arminianism  mingling  its  blood  with  its  sacri- 
fice in  all  the  by-ways  of  Holland ;  the  half-suppressed 
history  of  the  Familists,  the  Baptists,  and  the  Quakers 
of  New  England ;  the  maxims  of  trade  and  commerce 
and  bargaining  perverted,  Mammon  ruling  in  splendid 

*  Unitarianism  up  to  a  period  comparatively  recent  was  punish- 
able with  death  in  England.  It  was  also  punishable  with  death 
under  Puritan  law. 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE   TRINITY.  157 

churches,  and  starving  women  in  sound  of  their  bells, 
stitching  at  ninepence  a  day,  and  stitching  their  own 
shrouds  ;  American  slavery  creeping  into  the  churches, 
and  up  to  the  altar  and  the  pulpit,  and  overshadowing 
both  with  a  deadly  Atheism ;  the  hard  Jewish  bearing 
of  the  sects  towards  each  other ;  —  these,  and  ten 
thousand  more,  are  swift  and  sharp-tongued  witnesses 
to  the  results  of  the  fundamental  dogma  of  Prot- 
estantism, which  separates  religion  from  life,  and  under 
which  the  sweet  and  heavenly  charities  are  blasted 
and  withered. 

"  The  times  were  dark,  and  human  rights  were  not 
understood."  What  made  them  dark,  and  what  is  it 
that  separates  man  from  God,  and  by  consequence  man 
from  his  brother? 

V.  In  days  of  darkest  corruption,  and  amid  the  most 
awful  wickedness  of  an  apostate  Church,  there  have 
been  multitudes  who  have  lived  and  died  in  the  sanctity 
of  a  genuine  faith.  And  what  has  been  the  doctrine 
which  has  laid  hold  upon  them  and  saved  them  ?  "We 
believe  it  will  be  found  to  have  been  the  essential 
Divinity  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  breaking  clear  of 
the  tangles  of  Tritheism,  and  offering  the  Divine  Per- 
son to  the  humble  believer.  This  has  been  the  saving 
element  which  no  corruptions  could  completely  over- 
lay. It  is  a  personal,  vital  union  of  the  disciple  with 
his  Saviour  that  causes  the  Divine  Life  to  pass  into 
him  and  transform  him  into  the  Divine  image,  and 
produce  from  within  outwardly,  not  a  putative,  but  a 
genuine  righteousness :  it  is  this  which  saves  him 
when  it  becomes  dominant  over  the  divided  worship 
of  Tritheism.  Here  in  fact  is  the  distinctive  and  re- 


158  DR.    HUNTINGTON    ON    THE    TRINITY. 

newing  power  of  the  Gospel.  Thus  Dr.  Huntington 
writes  "in  his  Sermon  on  "the  Secret  of  the  New 
Name,"  and  with  an  affecting  truthfulness  which  in 
our  judgment  nullifies  every  syllable  of  his  argument 
for  the  Tripersonality  :  — 

"  The  special  character  and  privilege  of  the  Christian 
rest  in  a  personal  and  conscious  union  between  him  and 
his  living  Redeemer.  We  vex  our  ingenuity  straining 
after  definitions  of  the  distinctive  thing  in  Christianity. 
They  are  all  superficial  and  irrelevant  compared  with 
this.  How  uniform  and  majestic  the  testimony  that 
rises  from  all  the  lands  and  ages  of  faith  to  this  simple 
truth,  —  that  it  is  not  rules  of  conduct,  not  systems  of 
ethics,  not  patterns  of  propriety,  not  eloquent  exposi- 
tions, that  inspire  the  believing  and  faithful  heart  with 
its  immortal  energy  and  peace,  but  the  simple  secret  as- 
surance of  being  at  one  with  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  resting 
in  his  almighty  friendship !  Where  is  the  fiery  furnace 
deep  enough  to  burn  despair  into  our  souls,  if  we  can 
see  walking  with  us  through  the  fire  the  form  of  the 
Son  of  God  ?  What  then  is  the  tribulation,  or  famine, 
or  sword,  or  nakedness  which  shall  separate  us  from  the 
love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  The  mystery  of 
that  unity  where  He  who  is  at  one  with  God  yet  cried, 
*  Not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt,'  is  not  for  us  to  under- 
stand. Yet  the  prayer  of  promise,  '  They  shall  be  with 
me  where  I  am,'  is  for  us  to  lay  hold  of,  and  breathe 
again  and  again  when  we  are  aching  and  alone  and 
troubled." 

Not  only  when  we  are  aching  and  alone  and  troubled. 
When  we  are  weak  or  cowardly  in  the  face  of  duty,  or 
braced  up  only  by  the  pride  of  self  or  the  fear  of  man, 
it  is  rest  in  that  almighty  friendship  that  gives  both  the 
docility  of  the  child  and  the  strength  of  a  multitude  of 
martyrs.  There  is  other  virtue  which  is  hardy  and 
brave,  austere,  and  sometimes  cruel,  for  the  cause  and 


DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY.  159 

the  glory  of  God.  This  from  the  living  and  indwelling 
Christ  has  both  the  tenderness  and  omnipotence  of  Him 
who  breathes  it  into  us,  for  its  strain  of  acknowledgment 
is,  "  Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great."  This,  and 
not  the  Tripersonality,  has  been  the  renewing  power  of 
Christianity,  and  wrought  all  the  graces  and  the  right- 
eousness and  the  zeal  and  the  piety  distinctively  Chris- 
tian, for  this  is  where  God  meets  the  soul  and  has  his 
tabernacle  with  man.  This  is  the  door  through  which 
he  comes  and  floods  the  heart  with  his  strength  and  love. 
This  made  Methodism  a  saving  and  regenerating  power, 
while  the  other  churches  lay  high  and  dry  on  the  sands 
of  faith  alone.  It  works  the  deepest  and  the  richest 
Christian  experience.  It  breathes  and  quivers  through 
Moravian  hymns.  It  shows  man  all  the  depths  and 
windings  of  his  depravity,  and  in  the  same  measure  sup- 
plies God's  inexhaustible  grace.  It  gives  him  the  peace 
that  rolls  in  like  a  river,  and  fertilizes  all  his  nature  as 
earthly  fountains  are  becoming  dry.  It  gives  the  Chris- 
tian Church  all  the  efficiency  which  it  has  for  positive 
good  in  society.  And  when  the  hosts  above  sing  "  Wor- 
thy is  the  Lamb  that  was  slain,"  —  the  Divine  Human- 
ity denied  on  earth  but  acknowledged  in  heaven,  —  it  is 
this  vital  conscious  connection  between  Christ  and  his 
redeemed  that  inspires  the  "hallelujahs  and  harping 
symphonies." 

The  argument  for  any  doctrine  based  merely  upon  its 
prevalence  is  always  suspicious,  when  we  consider  the 
tendencies  of  a  corrupt  human  nature  to  bring  down  Di- 
vine truth  to  its  own  level.  But  when  we  lay  our  finger 
upon  a  doctrine  which  has  been  the  animus  of  the  Church 
through  all  its  most  fearful  apostasies,  the  argument  from 


160  DR.   HUNTINGTON    ON   THE    TRINITY. 

its  prevalence  is  blown  into  atoms.  History  as  well  as 
reason  turns  full  against  it.  The  temptation  is  strong 
and  subtle  to  yield  to  the  corrupt  currents  of  opinion, 
and  be  swept  along  with  them ;  but  that  we  are  going 
back  to  the  ages  when  Tritheism  shut  over  the  Church 
like  an  iron  cover,  and  shut  in  the  darkness,  there  is  no 
reason  to  apprehend.  For  one  hundred  years  Tritheism 
has  been  less  and  less  the  organific  centre  of  Christian 
theology,  while  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  Divine 
Incarnation,  the  descended  Word,  the  God  with  men, 
has  become  such  more  and  more.  This  becomes  the 
theme  of  all  that  Christian  revivalism  that  leaves  in  the 
renovated  heart  the  fragrancy  of  heaven ;  and  there  are 
omens  enough,  if  we  will  but  see  them,  that  not  a  divided 
worship,  but  a  Divine  Christology,  shall  fulfil  the  pre- 
diction, "  Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and 
he  will  dwell  with  them,  and  they  shall  be  his  people, 
and  God  himself  shall  be  with  them  and  be  their  God. 
And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes ;  and 
there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow  nor  crying, 
neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain ;  for  the  former 
things  are  passed  away. 


COMMUNICATIONS  TO  THE  CHRISTIAN 
REGISTER, 

FROM    JAN.   21    TO    MARCH   3,    1860  ;    INCLUDING    LET- 
TERS  BY   E.  A.,  R.  P.  S.,   AND    DR.   HUNTINGTON. 


I. 

DR.  HUNTINGTON' S   MISQUOTATION    OF   NEANDER   ON 
THE  TRINITY. 

MR.  EDITOR  :  —  In  Dr.  Huntington's  Sermon  on 
the  Trinity,  in  his  recently  published  volume  entitled 
"  Christian  Believing  and  Living,"  he  represents  the 
doctrine  of  three  coequal  persons  in  the  Godhead,  to 
each  of  whom  Divine  worship  is  to  be  offered,  as  "  the 
fundamental  article  of  Christian  belief,"  "  the  one  es- 
sential, characteristic  truth  of  the  Christian  religion." 
This  doctrine  he  regards  our  Saviour  as  announcing, 
with  the  greatest  solemnity,  in  the  so-called  formula 
of  baptism,  Matt,  xxviii.  19,  and  thus  giving  it  to  his 
Church  as  its  creed.  (See  pp.  355  -  364.)  It  is  not 
my  purpose  here  to  remark  on  the,  extraordinary  pro- 
cess which  extracts  the  ecclesiastical  dogma  of  the 
Trinity  from  the  simple  mention  of  the  Father,  the 
Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the  primary  objects  of 
Christian  faith,  a  public  profession  of  which  was  made 
by  baptism ;  nor  on  the  peculiar  state  of  mind  which 
finds  a  proof  of  the  deity  of  Christ  in  the  words  which 
precede,  "  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  in 
11 


162  COMMUNICATIONS   TO    THE 

earth:'  (See  pp.  366,  407,  527.)  I  only  wish  at  this 
time  to  call  attention  to  a  strange,  though,  I  doubt  not, 
wholly  unintentional  misquotation  and  misrepresenta- 
tion of  Neander,  by  which  he  is  made  to  express  an 
opinion  respecting  the  importance  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  in  accordance  with  that  of  Dr.  Huntington,  but 
in  direct  contradiction  to  his  own.  Dr.  Huntington  (p. 
378)  represents  him  as  saying  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  "  It  is  the  fundamental  article  of  the  Christian 
faith,  —  the  essential  contents  of  Christianity  summed 
up  in  brief." 

Now  the  fact  is,  not  only  that  Neander,  though  a 
Trinitarian,  makes  no  such  statement  as  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton  here  ascribes  to  him,  but  that  on  the  very  page 
from  which  this  professed  quotation  is  taken,  he  ex- 
pressly says,  and  insists  at  length  on  the  fact,  that  "  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  does  not  belong  to  the  funda- 
mental articles  of  the  Christian  faith."  (Hist,  of  the 
Christian  Religion  and  Church,  Vol.  I.  p.  572,  Torrey's 
translation.)  And  he  does  not  say,  that  "  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  is  the  essential  contents  of  Christianity ; " 
he  only  "  recognizes  the  essential  contents  of  Christian- 
ity, in  the  doctrine,"  as  constituting  its  practical  part. 
These  two  statements  are  very  far  from  equivalent. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  includes  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  Christianity,  as  husks,  include  the  ear,  or  as 
wheat  may  be  included  in  a  collection  of  chaff.  Dr. 
Huntington's  great  mistake,  throughout  his  sermon, 
consists  in  supposing  that  it  is  these  husks,  this  chaff, 
that  have  constituted  the  nutriment  of  the  Christian 
Church  and  sustained  its  life  in  all  the  ages  past,  and 
that  we  must  swallow  these  or  perish.  Neander,  on 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  163 

the  other  hand,  never  loses  sight  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  grand,  vital,  inspiring  truths  concerning  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  belong  to 
the  substance  of  Christianity,  in  which  Trinitarians 
and  Unitarians  alike  agree,  —  and  those  metaphysical 
speculations  upon  them  which  have  been  embodied  in 
the  ecclesiastical  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  in  the  widely 
different  forms  in  which  it  has  at  different  times  been 
held.  The  former  he  calls  "  the  practical  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,"  or  "  the  Trinity  of  revelation  ; "  the  latter 
he  speaks  of  as  "  the  speculative  or  ontological."  He 
does  not  identify  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  relig- 
ion, laid  by  God  himself,  with  the  "  gold,  silver,  and 
precious  stones,"  or  "  wood,  hay,  and  stubble,"  as  the 
case  may  be,  which  man  has  built  upon  it. 

In  confirmation  and  illustration  of  what  has  been 
said,  I  now  propose,  Mr.  Editor,  to  lay  before  your 
readers  the  principal  part  of  the  paragraph  from  which 
Dr.  Huntington  has  taken  this  strangely  mutilated  and 
perverted  quotation.  Neander  says,  in  his  "  History  of 
the  Christian  Religion  and  Church,"  Vol.  I.  pp.  571, 
572  of  Torrey's  translation,  which  may  be  compared 
with  pp.  984  -  986  of  the  original :  — 

"  We  now  proceed  to  the  doctrine  in  which  Theism, 
taken  in  its  connection  with  the  proper  and  fundamen- 
tal essence  of  Christianity,  or  with  the  doctrine  of  re- 
demption, finds  its  ultimate  completion,  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity.  This  doctrine  does  not  belong  to  the  fun- 
damental articles  of  the  Christian  faith  ;  *  as  appears 

*  I  have  omitted  the  word  "strictly"  which  stands  before 
"belong"  in  Torrey's  translation  of  the  first  clause  of  this 
sentence,  because  it  is  an  interpolation  of  the  translator,  to  which 


164  COMMUNICATIONS    TO   THE 

sufficiently  evident  from  the  fact,  that  it  is  expressly 
held  forth  in  no  one  particular  passage  of  the  New 
Testament ;  for  the  only  one  in  which  this  is  done,  the 
passage  relating  to  the  Three  that  bear  record,  (1  John 
v.,)  is  undoubtedly  spurious,  and  in  its  ungenuine  shape 
testifies  to  the  fact,  how  foreign  such  a  collocation  is 
from  the  style  of  the  New  Testament  Scriptures.  We 
find  in  the  New  Testament  no  other  fundamental  article 
besides  that  of  which  the  Apostle  Paul  says,  that  other 
foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  the  annun- 
ciation of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah ;  and  Christ  himself 
designates  as  the  foundation  of  his  religion,  the  faith  in 
the  only  true  God,  and  in  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  hath 
sent.  (John  xvii.  3.)  [More  correctly,  "  in  Jesus  the 
Christ,  as  his  Messenger,"  "  Jesus  den  Christ  als  seinen 
Gesandten"~\  What  Paul  styles  distinctively  the  mys- 
tery, relates  in  no  one  instance  to  what  belongs  to  the 
hidden  depths  of  the  divine  essence,  but  to  the  divine 
purpose  of  salvation,  which  found  its  accomplishment  in 
a  fact.  But  that  doctrine  [i.  e.  the  Trinity]  presup- 
poses, in  order  to  its  being  understood  in  its  real  signifi- 
cancy  for  the  Christian  consciousness,  this  fundamental 
article  of  the  Christian  faith  [i.  e.  the  Messiahship  of 
Jesus]  ;  and  we  recognize  therein  the  essential  contents 
of  Christianity,  summed  up  in  brief,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  the  determinate  form  which  is  given  to  Theism  by 
its  connection  with  this  fundamental  article.  It  is  this 
doctrine  by  which  God  becomes  known  as  the  original 


there  is  nothing  corresponding  in  the  original.  Neander  says, 
without  any  qualification,  "  Diese  Lehre  gehort  nicht  zu  den  Grund- 
artikeln  des  christlichen  Glaiibens"  The  English  editor  of  Tor- 
rey's  translation  of  Neander,  the  Rev.  A.  J.  W.  Morrison,  who 
professes  to  have  "  carefully  revised "  it,  instead  of  striking  out 
the  word  "  strictly,"  softens  Neander's  language  still  more.  He 
makes  the  sentence  read  thus  :  —  "  This  doctrine  does  not,  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  belong  strictly  to  the  fundamental  articles  of  the 
Christian  faith,"  &c.  (Vol.  II.  p.  286.) 


CHRISTIAN  REGISTER.  165 

Fountain  of  all  existence  ;  as  he  by  whom  the  rational 
creation,  that  had  become  estranged  from  him,  is  brought 
back  to  the  fellowship  with  him ;  and  as  he  in  the  fel- 
lowship with  whom  it  from  thenceforth  subsists  :  —  the 
threefold  relation  in  which  God  stands  to  mankind,  as 
primal  ground,  mediator,  and  end,  —  Creator,  Redeem- 
er, Sanctifier,  —  in  which  threefold  relation  the  whole 
Christian  knowledge  of  God  is  completely  announced. 
Accordingly,  all  is  herein  embraced  [rather,  "every- 
thing in  this  doctrine  is  brought  together "]  by  the 
Apostle  Paul,  when  he  names  the  one  God  and  Father 
of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  works  through  all  and  in 
all  (Eph.  iv.  6)  ;  or  Him  from  whom  are  all  things, 
through  whom  are  all  things,  and  to  whom  are  all 
things ;  when,  in  pronouncing  the  benediction,  he  sums 
up  all  in  the  formula :  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  love  of  God,  and  the  communion  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  God,  as  the  living  God,  the  God  of 
mankind,  and  the  God  of  the  Church,  can  be  truly 
known  in  this  way  only." 

On  the  next  page,  Neander  distinguishes  "  the  prac- 
tical "  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  of  which  he  is  here 
speaking, — "which  starts  from  God  revealed  in  Christ, 
or  from  the  position  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  that  God  was 
in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself," — from  "the 
speculative  or  ontological  view."  Of  the  former  he 
says :  "  It  is  that  which  forms  the  basis  of  the  true 
unity  of  the  Church  and  the  identity  of  the  Christian 
consciousness  in  all  ages.  But  the  intellectual  process 
of  development,  by  means  of  which  the  economico- 
practical  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  reduced  to  the 
ontological,  was  a  gradual  one,  and  must  necessarily 
run  through  manifold  opposite  forms." 

In  further  illustration  of  the  views  of  Neander,  I 
quote  from  his  "  History  of  the  Planting  and  Training 


166  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

of  the  Christian  Church  by  the  Apostles,"  as  translated 
by  Ryland,  Vol.  H.  pp.  56,  57,  Bonn's  ed.     He  there 


"  Both  John  and  Paul  place  the  essence  of  Christian 
theism  in  worshipping  God  as  the  Father,  through  the 
Son,  in  the  communion  of  the  divine  life  which  he  has 
established,  or  in  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
the  Father  through  the  Son  dwelling  in  mankind  ani- 
mated by  his  Spirit,  agreeably  to  the  triad,  of  the  Paul- 
ine benediction,  —  the  love  of  God,  the  grace  of  Christ, 
and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Spirit  (2  Cor.  xiii. 
13)  ;  and  this  is  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity in  the  connection  of  Christian  experience.  It  has 
an  essentially  practical  and  historical  significance  and 
foundation ;  it  is  the  doctrine  of  God  revealed  in  hu- 
manity, which  teaches  men  to  recognize  in  God  not 
only  the  original  source  of  existence,  but  also  of  salva- 
tion and  sanctification.  From  this  trinity  of  revelation, 
as  far  as  the  divine  causality  images  itself  in  the  same, 
the  reflective  mind,  according  to  the  analogy  of  its  own 
being,  pursuing  this  track,  seeks  to  elevate  itself  to  the 
idea  of  an  original  triad  in  God,  availing  itself  of  the 
intimations  which  are  contained  in  John's  doctrine  of 
the  Logos,  and  the  cognate  elements  of  the  Pauline 
theology." 

It  cannot  be  necessary  to  point  out  the  difference  be- 
tween the  common  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  Dr. 
Huntington  maintains,  and  that  view  of  the  Trinity,  if 
we  choose  to  adopt  the  name,  which  Neander  presents 
as  constituting  it  a  practical  doctrine.  In  the  latter,  it 
will  be  perceived,  there  is  nothing  to  which  a  Unitarian 
will  not  cordially  assent.  But  when,  leaving  this  prac- 
tical view  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  the 
"  trinity  of  revelation,"  as  Neander  calls  it,  "  the  reflec- 
tive mind  seeks  to  elevate  itself  to  the  idea  of  an  origi- 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  167 

nal  triad  in  God,"  and  ventures  to  speculate  on  the 
mode  of  the  divine  existence,  on  "  persons,"  or  "  hypos- 
tases,"  or  "  subsistences  "  in  the  nature  of  the  One  In- 
finite and  Eternal  Being,  it 

"  Finds  no  end,  in  wandering  mazes  lost." 

The  result  may  be  plain  self-contradiction,  as  in  the 
so-called  Athanasian  creed ;  it  may  be  such  expositions 
of  "  the  Identity,"  "  the  Ipseity,"  "  the  Alterity,"  and 
"  the  Community,"  as  are  given  us  by  Coleridge ;  *  or 
such  an  elucidation  of  the  mystery  as  Dr.  Huntington 
(pp.  373,  374)  quotes  from  Olshausen,  who  tells  us  that 
"  the  knowledge  which  God  possesses  of  himself  is  desig- 
nated as  the  Son;  in  him  dwells  the  Father  himself, 
and  through  him  effects  everything  that  he  does  effect. 
But  as  all  the  powers  of  the  Father  concentrate  them- 
selves, as  it  were,  in  his  self-consciousness,  so  do  they 
also  continually  revert  from  the  Son  to  their  primary 
source,  the  Father,  and  this  return  is  designated  as  the 
Holy  Ghost!"  It  may  be  a  hundred  other  combina- 
tions of  words  without  meaning ;  or  it  may  be,  far 
worse  than  this,  the  gross  and  material  views  which 
we  find  in  writers  like  Flavel,  who  describe  minutely 
the  "  bargain  "  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity  in  the  so- 
called  "  Covenant  of  Redemption,"  in  language  which 
expresses  conceptions  of  the  Divine  Being  degraded  to 
the  level  of  Paganism.t 

How  refreshing  to  turn  from  such  "darkening  of 
counsel  by  words  without  knowledge,"  to  the  sterling 

*  See  his  Literary  Remains.    Works,  V.  18,  19,  Amer.  ed. 
t  See  FlavePs  Fountain  of  Life,  Serin.  III. 


168  COMMUNICATIONS   TO    THE 

sense  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  as  expressed  in  the  following 
passage,  quoted  by  Bushnell  in  the  extract  given  by 
Dr.  Huntington,  p.  414:  — 

"  He  who  goes  about  to  speak  of  the  mystery  of  the 
Trinity,  and  does  it  by  words  and  names  of  man's  in- 
vention, talking  of  essences  and  existences,  hypostases 
and  personalities,  priority  in  coequalities,  and  unity  in 
pluralities,  may  amuse  himself  and  build  a  tabernacle 
in  his  head,  and  talk  of  something  he  knows  not  what ; 
but  the  good  man  who  feels  the  power  of  the  Father, 
to  whom  the  Son  is  become  wisdom,  sanctification,  and 
righteousness,  and  in  whose  heart  the  Spirit  is  shed 
abroad,  —  this  man,  though  he  understands  nothing  of 
what  is  unintelligible,  yet  he  alone  truly  understands 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Trinity."  * 

Amen !  E.  A. 


*  This  is  a  condensation  rather  than  an  exact  quotation  by 
Bushnell  of  a  passage  in  Taylor's  famous  sermon  before  the 
University  of  Dublin,  entitled  Via  Intelligentice.  See  his  Works, 
Lond.  1828,  Vol.  VI.  pp.  402,  403. 


CHRISTIAN    REGISTER.  169 


II. 


DR.  HUNTINGTON'S  QUOTATIONS  FROM  SCRIPTURE 
IN  PROOF  OF  THE  TRINITY. 

MR.  EDITOR  :  —  In  the  last  number  of  the  Register, 
as  some  of  your  readers  may  recollect,  notice  was  taken 
of  a  singular  misquotation  of  Neander  in  Dr.  Hunting1- 
ton's  recent  volume  of  sermons,  entitled  "  Christian  Be- 
lieving and  Living."  The  mistake  by  which  that  emi- 
nent theologian  was  made  to  say  the  opposite  of  what 
he  does  say,  can  only  be  explained  by  supposing  that 
the  sentence  in  question  was  hastily  glanced  at,  and  that 
no  attention  was  paid  to  the  context.  I  allude  to  this 
now  simply  for  the  purpose  of  remarking,  that  Dr.  Hun- 
tington,  in  his  sermon  on  the  Trinity  in  the  volume  re- 
ferred to,  has  quoted  Scripture  in  several  instances  in 
much  the  same  way  in  which  he  has  quoted  Neander. 
I  mean  by  this,  that  he  has  cited  detached  expressions 
and  fragments  of  sentences  torn  from  their  connection, 
in  a  manner  adapted  to  produce  a  very  different  impres- 
sion on  the  mind  of  the  reader  from  that  which  would 
be  made  if  the  passages  thus  mutilated  were  quoted  more 
fully.  This  mode  of  quotation  is  the  more  to  be  regret- 
ted, as  no  references  are  made  to  the  places  from  which 
the  passages  cited  are  taken,  so  that  the  reader  may  not 
always  be  able  to  turn  to  them  immediately,  and  exam- 
ine the  context  for  himself. 

In  making  these  statements,  I  have  no  thought  of 
charging  the  Professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  the  Uni- 


170  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

versity  at  Cambridge  with  any  conscious  unfairness  or 
intentional  misrepresentation.  But  I  wish  to  illustrate 
and  protest  against  a  false  mode  of  quoting  and  arguing 
from  Scripture,  into  which  theological  writers  of  all  de- 
nominations are  apt  to  fall,  and  against  which  we  should 
all  be  on  our  guard,  taking  care  neither  to  practise  it 
ourselves,  nor  to  be  deceived  by  it  in  others. 

In  p.  366  of  his  recent  volume  of  sermons,  Dr. 
Huntington  says :  "  For  him  who  has  t  all  power  in 
heaven  and  earth '  to  say,  4  Of  that  day  and  hour  know- 
eth  not  the  Son,'  is  condescension  indeed."  In  p.  527 
he  also  says  of  Christ,  "'All  power'  is  his  'in  heaven 
and  earth.' "  The  passage  referred  to  is  Matt,  xxviii. 
18,  where  our  Saviour  says,  "  All  power  is  given  unto 
me  in  heaven  and  in  earth."  This  little  word  "  given  " 
would  not  have  greatly  increased  the  length  of  the  quo- 
tation. 

Again  (p.  366)  he  quotes  as  proof  of  our  Saviour's 
deity  the  declaration,  "  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen 
the  Father."  (John  xiv.  9.)  It  was,  perhaps,  hardly  to 
be  expected  that  he  should  add  the  words  of  the  next 
verse :  "  Believest  thou  not  that  I  am  in  the  Father  and 
the  Father  in  me  ?  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you  I 
speak  not  of  myself;  but  the  Father  that  dwelleth  in 
me  he  doeth  the  works." 

Dr.  Huntington  continues  his  argument  by  saying: 
"  Paul  speaks  of  Christ  as  set  '  far  above  all  principality 
and  power,  and  might  and  dominion,  and  every  name 
that  is  named,  not  only  in  this  world,  but  also  in  that 
which  is  to  come.'  Can  this  be  a  creature  ?  " 

The  verse  thus  quoted  is  Eph.  i.  21.  It  is  part  of  a 
sentence,  in  which  Paul  is  speaking  of  the  work  of  God's 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  171 

mighty  power,  "  which  *he  wrought  in  Christ,  when  he 
raised  him  from  the  dead  and  set  him  at  his  own  right 
hand  in  the  heavenly  places,  far  above  all  principality 
and  power,  and  might  and  dominion,  and  every  name 
that  is  named,  not  only  in  this  world,  but  also  in  that 
which  is  to  come ;  and  hath  put  all  things  under  his  feet, 
and  gave  him  to  be  the  head  over  all  things  to  the 
Church,  which  is  his  body,  the  fulness  of  him  that  filleth 
all  in  all." 

Dr.  Huntington  proceeds  to  quote  as  follows :  "  That 
at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  and  every 
tongue  confess  that  he  is  Lord,"  adding  the  question, 
"  Is  not  this  a  being  to  whom  prayer  is  to  be  offered  ?  " 

The  passage  as  thus  quoted  begins  very  abruptly  with 
a  "  that,"  and  is  also  shorn  of  its  conclusion.  The  whole 
sentence  reads  as  follows:  "Wherefore  God  also  hath 
highly  exalted  him,  and  given  him  a  name  that  is  above 
every  name ;  that  at  the  name  of  Jesus  [literally,  "  in 
the  name  of  Jesus  "]  every  knee  should  bow,-  of  things 
in  heaven,  and  things  in  earth,  and  things  under  the 
earth ;  and  that  every  tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God,  the  Father"  (Phil, 
ii.  9-11.) 

In  p.  372  Dr.  Huntington  begins  another  quotation 
in  the  same  way  with  a  "  that"  —  " That  all  men  should 
honor  the  Son  even  as  they  honor  the  Father,"  &c. 
The  whole  sentence  reads  as  follows :  "  For  the  Father 
judgeth  no  man,  but  hath  committed  all  judgment  unto 
the  Son ;  that  all  men  should  honor  the  Son,  even  as 
they  honor  the  Father.  He  that  honoreth  not  the  Son, 
honoreth  not  the  Father  which  hath  sent  him."  (John 
v.  22,  23.) 


172  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

In  the  note  to  the  same  sermon,  p.  525,  there  are 
instances  in  which  Dr.  Huntington  detaches  certain 
expressions  from  their  connection,  applying  them  to  a 
subject  to  which  they  do  not  relate,  or  to  which,  at  least, 
they  are  not  expressly  applied  in  the  original.  Thus, 
referring  to  Phil.  ii.  7,  8,  he  says  of  our  Saviour,  "  So 
he  'took  on'  the  form  of  man.  He  'humbled  himself 
to  be  human."  The  expressions  of  Paul  are,  "  He  took 
upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant,'  —  "he  humbled  him- 
self, and  became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of 
the  cross." 

Again  Dr.  Huntington  says  (p.  525),  "He  'left  the 
glory  he  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was/" 
Here  the  word  left  is  improperly  put  within  quotation 
marks.  The  reference  is  to  John  xviL  5,  where  emi- 
nent Trinitarian  commentators  have  understood  the  glo- 
ry which  Christ  prays  for,  "the  glory  which  he  had  with 
the  Father  before  the  world  was,"  to  mean  the  glory 
which  was  destined  for  him  as  the  Messiah  in  the  eter- 
nal purpose  of  God. 

On  p.  527  we  find  an  extraordinary  misquotation  and 
misapprehension  of  an  important  passage.  Dr.  Hun- 
tington is  here  treating  of  prayer  to  Christ,  which  he 
calls  "  a  richer  worship "  (p.  528)  than  prayer  to  the 
Father.  Speaking  of  our  Saviour's  discourse  at  the 
Last  Supper,  he  remarks :  — 

"  He  said,  too,  speaking  of  the  sad,  impending  hour  of 
separation,  when  he  foresaw  that  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  his  followers  would  be  torn  with  anguish  and  doubt, 
half  paralyzed  by  fear,  and  alternating  between  fond  re- 
membrances of  his  bodily  appearance  and  new  thoughts 
of  the  spiritual  relation  to  subsist  thenceforth  between 
them,  — '  In  that  hour  ye  shall  (or  will)  ask  me  nothing.' 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  173 

But  he  adds,  very  considerately,  to  console  them,  Nev- 
ertheless, your  halting  faith  shall  not  forfeit  the  blessing. 
'  Whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  the  Father,  in  my  name,  he 
will  give  it  you  ; '  and  again, '  If  ye  shall  ask  anything 
in  my  name,  I  will  do  it.'  The  whole  passage  evidently 
relates  to  the  distinction  between  his  outward  and  his 
eternal  presence,  between  the  visible  and  the  invisible 
intercourse  of  his  followers  with  him.  In  a  remoter 
and  calmer  period  his  worship  would  take  its  place 
spontaneously  in  their  hymns,  ejaculations,  and  litanies. 
Meantime,  he  points  them  to  the  Father  in  whom  they 
are  already  believing  with  a  more  settled  and  definite 
faith." 

The  verse  which  Dr.  Huntington  thus  quotes  and  ex- 
plains, is  John  xvi.  23.  Asking  the  reader  to  turn  to 
it,  I  will  quote  it  in  connection  with  the  preceding  and 
the  following  verse,  which  will  be  sufficient  to  show  how 
utterly  he  has  mistaken  its  meaning.  Our  Saviour  says 
to  his  disciples  :  — 

"  And  ye  now  therefore  have  sorrow.  But  I  will 
see  you  again,  and  your  heart  shall  rejoice,  and  your 
joy  no  man  taketh  from  you.  And  in  that  day  ye 
shall  ask  me  nothing.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you, 
Whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  the  Father  in  my  name,  he 
will  give  it  you.  Hitherto  ye  have  asked  nothing  in 
my  name;  ask,  and  ye  shall  receive,  that  your  joy 
may  be  full." 

By  the  expression  "  in  that  day,"  Dr.  Huntington 
understands  "  the  sad,  impending  hour  of  separation, 
when  the  hearts  and  minds  of  Christ's  followers  would 
be  torn  with  anguish  and  doubt,"  when,  on  account 
of  their  "  halting  faith,"  they  would  not  have  confidence 
to  address  their  prayers  directly  to  him,  as  they  would 
"  in  a  remoter  and  calmer  period ; "  and  in  accordance 


174  COMMUNICATIONS   TO    THE 

with  this  view,  in  quoting  the  passage,  he  takes  the 
liberty  to  substitute  " hour "  for  " day"  But  how  evi- 
dent it  is,  that  the  meaning  is  just  the  reverse;  that 
the  expression  refers  to  the  time  after  his  resurrection, 
when  he  would  "  see  them  again "  and  be  with  them 
again  in  spirit,  and  "  their  hearts  would  rejoice,"  with 
a  joy  which  no  human  power  could  destroy.  He  is 
speaking  of  the  time  when  the  Holy  Spirit  would 
enlighten  their  minds  and  comfort  their  hearts,  guiding 
them  into  such  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  as  they  could 
not  attain  while  he  was  with  them  in  the  flesh.  The 
expression  "in  that  day"  is  used  as  it  is  in  the  26th 
verse  of  the  same  chapter,  and  in  John  xiv.  20,  which, 
with  its  context,  should  be  compared  with  the  present 
passage.  I  am  not  aware  that  any  commentator,  in 
any  age,  ever  dreamt  of  understanding  this  passage  in 
the  way  in  which  it  is  explained  by  Dr.  Huntington. 

It  is  proper,  however,  to  remark,  that  the  word 
"  ask,"  in  the  first  clause  of  the  23d  verse,  is  ambigu- 
ous. It  may  mean  either  "  to  ask  a  question,"  or  "  to 
ask  a  favor,"  "  to  request."  John  often  uses  it  in 
both  senses.  It  is  a  different  word  in  the  original  from 
that  translated  "ask"  in  the  last  part  of  the  verse. 
The  sentence,  "  In  that  day  ye  shall  (or  will)  ask  me 
nothing,"  has  been  understood  by  many  to  mean,  "  At 
that  time  you  will  have  no  need  to  question  me."  The 
doubts  which  now  perplex  you  will  be  removed.  But 
whether  this  is  the  true  meaning  or  not,  the  fact  is  in- 
controvertible, that  our  Saviour  uniformly  directed  his 
disciples  to  address  their  prayers,  not  to  himself,  nor 
to  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  a  distinct  person  in  the  Trinity, 
but  to  the  Father  in  his  name. 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  175 

I  will  give  another  specimen  of  Dr.  Huntington's 
expositions  of  Scripture.  He  says  (p.  367) :  — 

"  At  last this  incarnate  '  Head  over  all  things 

to  the  Church'  will  render  up  the  kingdom  to  the 
Father,  and  resume  his  place  in  the  coequal  Three, 
the  indivisible  One.  Mark  the  expressions.  (1  Cor.  xv. 
24,  28.)  It  is  the  Son  who  hath  put '  all  things  under 
his  feet,'  l  all  rule,  authority,  and  power,'  who  is  *  sub- 
ject unto  God  (inroTayrjo-fTai,  'arranged  under').  Just 
after,  it  is  God  that  *  hath  put  all  things  under  him.' 
In  this  sense,  therefore,  God  and  the  Son  are  the 
same,  for  the  same  mastery  is  asserted  of  each.  But 
the  Son,  in  his  character  of  Sonship,  is  retaken,  so  to 
speak,  into  the  everlasting,  almighty,  ineffable,  undivided 
One,  where  the  distinctions  of  office  which  had  aided 
us  so  greatly  in  apprehending  the  glorious  Trinity  are 
lost  to  our  sight.  It  is  not  anything  peculiar  to  one 
of  the  Three  Persons,  but  God  in  whom  they  all  are 
One,  who  then  « is  all  in  all.' " 

Such  is  the  comment.     The  following  is  the  text :  — 

"  Then  cometh  the  end,  when  he  shall  have  delivered 
up  the  kingdom  to  God,  even  the  Father:  when  he 
shall  have  put  down  all  rule  and  all  authority  and 
power.  For  he  must  reign,  till  he  hath  put  all  enemies 
under  his  feet.  The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  destroyed 
is  Death.  For  he  [i.  e.  God]  hath  put  all  things  under 
his  feet.  (Ps.  viii.  6.)  But  when  he  saith,  All 
things  are  put  under  him,  it  is  manifest  that  He  is  ex- 
cepted,  which  did  put  all  things  under  him.  And  when 
all  things  shall  be  subdued  unto  him,  THEN  shall  the  Son 
also  himself  be  subject  unto  him  that  put  all  things 
under  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all." 

In  p.  363,  Dr.  Huntington  quotes  the  expression 
"  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,"  as  if  it  were  a  scriptural 
designation  of  Christ.  The  reference  is  to  1  Tim.  iii. 
16.  The  expression  itself  is  one  which  a  Unitarian 


176  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

might  very  naturally  use,  to  represent  more  vividly 
the  fact  that  "  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself; "  but  if  quoted  as  an  argument  for  the 
doctrine  of  the  deity  of  Christ,  it  should  be  understood 
that  the  leading  Trinitarian  critics  of  the  present  day, 
on  the  authority  of  the  best  manuscripts  and  early 
versions,  regard  the  word  "  God,"  in  the  passage  re- 
ferred to,  as  a  corruption  of  the  original  text,  the  true 
reading  being  not  6eos,  "  God,"  but  Ss,  "  who,"  or  "  he 
who."  Such  is  the  view  of  Olshausen,  Meyer,  De 
"Wette,  Wiesinger,  Huther,  Bunsen,  Davidson,  Green, 
Jowett,  and  the  recent  editors  Lachmann,  Tischendorf, 
Tregelles,  Alford,  Ellicott,  arid  "Wordsworth,  to  say 
nothing  of  Griesbach,  and  others  among  the  older 
critics.  E.  A. 


III. 

DE.  HUNTINGTON  AND  DK.  POND. 

DR.  HUNTINGTON  has  found  his  way  to  a  belief  in  a 
Trinity  through  what  he  conceives  to  be  the, "needs, 
the  longings"  of  the  soul.  The  suffering  of  any  nature 
lower  than  the  Divine  does  not  meet  the  grand  want 

of  man.     "  It  is  only  as  we  find the  nameless 

and  inexpressible  anguish  of  a  Divine  and  Infinite  Be- 
ing   that  the  signals  of  the  Passion  are  lifted 

into  any  genuine  honor."     "  Without  this,  they 

fail  even  of  respect." "  When  the  Saviour  suf- 
fered, God  suffered."  "  When  the  mortal  part  of  the 
Saviour  died,  God  suffered  with  him."  "  And  in  that 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  177 

dying there  was  involved   God's  anguish  for 

his  sinning  children."  "  Now  this  is  precisely  what  an 
inferior  faith  fails  to  gain.  Raise  your  conception  of 
Christ's  rank  in  the  scale  of  created  being  as  high  as 

you   may both   practically  and   logically  the 

needed  atonement  fails.  God  himself  is  not  in  the 
suffering.  This  [i.  e.  that  God  should  suffer]  was  the 
requirement  of  the  case.  This  was  the  longing  of  the 
guilty  heart.  This  is  what  the  Gospel,  from  end  to 
end,  in  plain,  and  full,  and  glorious  language  declares." 

Such  is  Dr.  Huntington's  declaration  of  the  need  of 
human  nature  ;  there  must  be  a  Trinity  ;  and  God,  nor 
simply  human  nature,  or  the  human  nature  in  which 
the  Son  was  incarnated,  must  have  suffered  for  sin. 
This  is  all  very  clear  and  very  explicit.  The  only 
question  about  it  is  whether  it  is  true.  If  I  were  to 
bring  my  view  of  human  need  as  an  offset  to  his,  Dr. 
Huntington  would  probably  say  that  I  was  not  a  proper 
judge  in  such  a  case,  that  Unitarian  experience  was  not 
"  deep  "  enough  nor  "  searching  "  enough  to  enable  one 
to  speak  of  the  "  profound "  needs  of  the  soul.  So  it 
would  be  a  waste  of  time  for  me  to  attempt  a  denial 
of  the  asserted  need,  and  furnished  supply.  So  I  will 
stand  aside  and  introduce  the  Rev.  Enoch  Pond,  D.  D., 
Professor  of  Theology  in  Bangor  Theological  Seminary, 
a  man  of  advanced  age,  of  most  thorough  and  undis- 
puted Orthodoxy  during  all  his  years,  doubtless  sinner 
enough  to  have  some  correct  conceptions  of  a  sinner's 
needs,  and  a  sufficiently  thorough  student  of  the  Bible 
to  know  what  it  says  about  the  supply  of  them.  What 
says  the  old  veteran  theologian  whose  long  life  has  been 
spent  in  the  light  of  Orthodox  theology,  and  who  ought 
12 


178  COMMUNICATIONS   TO    THE 

to  know  something  about  it?  In  the  "Bibliotheca  Sacra 
and  Theological  Review "  for  April,  1850,  the  venera- 
ble Professor  has  discussed  this  very  point,  which  has 
so  exercised  the  mind  and  heart  of  Dr.  Huntington, 
and  has  given  us  at  great  length,  and  with  great  store 
of  learning  and  severity  of  logic,  his  view  of  the  sub- 
ject. Let  us  hear  the  declaration  of  this  oracle  of 
Trinitarianism.  "  Did  he  [Christ]  suffer  only  as  a 
man,  a  divinely  strengthened  and  supported  man ;  or 
did  the  Divinity  also  suffer?"  This  is  the  question 
answered.  "  Did  God  as  well  as  man  suffer  ?  "  This 
is  the  question  Dr.  Pond  discusses,  and  he  answers  it 
peremptorily  in  the  negative  ;  flatly  contradicts  Dr. 
Huntington,  and  emphatically  denies  the  only  view  of 
Christ's  sufferings  which  can  "satisfy  the  longings  of 
the  guilty  heart."  Through  two  pages  the  venerable 
Professor  of  Bangor  quotes  passages  to  show  that  it  is 
utterly  unscriptural  to  assert  that  the  Divine  nature  in 
Christ  suffered.  He  says  that  they  prove  "  as  certainly 
as  words  can  prove  anything,  that  our  Saviour's  suffer- 
ings (if  we  except  those  of  mere  sympathy)  were  con- 
fined to  his  human  nature."  Dr.  Pond  says  the  Bible 
is  against  Dr.  Huntington's  view.  We  shall  therefore 
wait  and  see  if  the  Bangor  veteran  follows  the  new 
light  before  we  run  after  it.  Till  then  we  shall  rest 
quietly  in  our  Unitarianism,  and  believe  that  the 
Scriptures  teach  that  human  nature  only  suffered  on 
the  cross,  and  also  continue  to  believe  that  such  a  view 
of  our  Saviour's  sufferings  is  sufficient  for  all  the  needs 
of  any  "  guilty  heart." 

But  Dr.  Pond  goes  further.     He  says  that  to  suppose 
our  Saviour's  suffering  "  extended  to  the  Divine  nature, 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  179 

to  God,  is  inconsistent  with  his  acknowledged  perfections." 
M  What  possible  idea,"  he  exclaims,  "  can  we  frame  of 
these  sufferings  if  we  say  that  they  were  the  sufferings 
of  God  himself  ?  "  "  Who  can  conceive  of  such  a  thing  ? 
Who  can  contemplate  it  but  with  distress  and  horror  ?  " 
Dr.  Pond's  idea  of  what  the  "guilty  heart"  requires 
differs  very  widely  from  Dr.  Huntington's.  "  Distress 
and  horror  "  fill  the  heart  of  the  venerable  Professor  of 
Bangor  as  he  contemplates  the  only  doctrine  which  the 
Plummer  Professor  at  Cambridge  says  can  give  peace 
and  trust  to  the  sinner.  Surely,  when  such  discordant 
voices  are  uttered,  one  may  well  be  pardoned  for  wait- 
ing till  the  infallible  guides  are  agreed,  before  he  deserts 
the  old  path  of  Channing  and  Ware. 

After  describing  still  further  the  "logical"  absurdi- 
ties of  the  view  that  "  God  suffered,"  Dr.  Pond  says, 
"  If  these  expressions  shall  seem  to  any  of  my  readers 
irreverent  and  awful,  I  cannot  help  it.  They  are  no 
more  irreverent  than  the  theory  which  I  am  laboring 
to  expose."  So  Dr.  Pond  pronounces  Dr.  Huntington's 
theory,  to  embrace  which  he  felt  compelled  to  abandon 
the  Unitarians,  "  irreverent "  /  /  Surely  there  is  some- 
thing new  under  the  sun ;  a  good  man  leaves  the  here- 
sies of  his  old  associates,  and  his  associates  also,  and 
rushes  among  the  ranks  of  their  opposers,  flaunting  in 
the  faces  of  his  new  friends  the  declaration  of  his  faith, 
which  ten  years  before  had  been  pronounced  by  one  of 
the  veteran  commanders  of  the  hosts  of  God's  elect, 
"  irreverent"  " demonstrable/  false  " !  !  It  is  said  that  a 
great  statesman  once  asked  despondingly,  "  Where  shall 
/go?"  After  a  few  pages  more,  in  which  the  absurd- 
ity of  the  Divine  sufferings  is  illustrated,  Dr.  Pond  says, 


180  COMMUNICATIONS   TO    THE 

"  I  here  close  my  argument  against  this  strange,  and  to 
my  apprehension,  monstrous  idea,  that  the  Divine  nature 
of  Christ  participated  directly  in  the  sufferings  of  the 
cross."  The  Italics  are  mine. 

Dr.  Huntington  is  confident,  respecting  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  that  the  heart  of  all  Christendom  could 
not  have  been  in  an  error  for  so  many  ages.  Dr.  Pond 
says  that  the  doctrine  of  the  suffering  of  the  Divine  na- 
ture is  a  new  one ;  has  come  up  within  a  few  years ;  was 
almost  universally  rejected  for  eighteen  centuries.  Now 
if  the  almost  universal  belief  of  the  Church  for  eighteen 
hundred  years  is  good  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  it  would  seem  to  be  equally  good 
proof  of  the  erroneousness  of  Dr.  Huntington's  view  of 
the  longings  of  the  guilty  heart,  and  their  satisfaction  by 
the  sufferings  of  the  Divine  nature,  that  all  these  ages 
rejected  his  doctrine.  At  least  I  think  so.  Dr.  Pond 
confutes  Dr.  Huntington. 

The  Bangorian  Professor  has  a  "  horror  "  of  the  re- 
sults of  Dr.  Huntington's  doctrine.  He  says  its  fruits 
"will  be  bitter,  like  all  the  products  of  delusion  and 
error."  It  is  positively  too  bad  to  have  this  grave 
Down-easter  meet  the  jubilant  neophyte,  who  has  just 
discovered  the  only  doctrine  which  will  satisfy  the  "  long- 
ing of  the  guilty  heart,"  with  a  flat  affirmation  that  it  is 
mere  "delusion  and  error."  Evangelicism  is  a  queer 
thing.  Dr.  Pond  says  further,  that  the  tendency  of  this 
doctrine  "  will  be  to  degrade  and  dishonor  him  [God]." 
It  will  be  no  comfort  to  the  Plummer  Professor  to  be  told 
that  his  Bangor  brother  says,  "  The  views  I  have  con- 
troverted, should  they  extensively  prevail,  will  be  likely 
to  drive  many  into  simple  Unitarianism."  More  and 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  181 

worse.  "  The  doctrine  of  a  suffering  Deity,  of  a  cruci- 
fied God,  is  TOO  REVOLTING  [these  capitals  are  ours] 
to  obtain  currency  with  THINKING  minds,  [that  is  too 
bad,  Dr.  Pond ;]  and,  if  this  shall  come  to  be  insisted 
on  as  essential  to  Orthodoxy,  not  a  few  will  renounce  it 
altogether.  It  will  lead  '  persons '  to  reject  the  atone- 
ment altogether,  and  trust  to  the  work  of  their  own 
hands  for  salvation."  "  It  is  always  safe  to  follow  the 
Bible,  honestly,  faithfully,  reasonably  interpreted ;  but 
specious  theories  and  startling  novelties  are  to  be  sus- 
pected and  avoided." 

But  enough,  enough.  I  have  shown  that  one  of  the 
most  venerable  and  eminent  evangelical  theologians  pro- 
nounced, ten  years  ago,  the  view  which  gives  Dr.  Hun- 
tington  so  much  joy,  and  which  alone  can  "  satisfy  the 
longings  of  the  guilty  heart,"  a  "  delusion  and  error," 
"contrary  to  Scripture,"  "inconsistent  with  God's  ac- 
knowledged perfection,"  "  too  revolting  to  obtain  cur- 
rency with  thinking  minds,"  and  "  likely  [most  awful  of 
all]  to  drive  many  into  simple  Unitarianism  " ! ! 

R.  P.  s. 


IV. 

LETTER  FROM  PROF.  HUNTINGTON. 

Cambridge,  Jan.  30, 1860. 

MR.  E.EED  : — Your  correspondent,  "E.  A.,"  charges 
me  with  a  misquotation  from  Neander,  in  a  sermon  on 
the  Trinity.  The  explanation  is  simple,  but  not  wholly 


182  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

satisfactory  even  to  myself.  The  quotation  was  trans- 
ferred from  an  article  by  a  theological  writer,  whose 
accuracy  I  had  no  reason  to  question,  and  whose  hon- 
esty is  above  suspicion,  where  many  of  the  readers  of 
the  "  Register  "  must  have  seen  it.  Knowing  Neander, 
as  every  one  familiar  with  his  various  writings  knows 
him,  to  be  a  Trinitarian,  I  did  not  verify  the  extract  by 
a  reference  to  the  author.  I  trust  I  have  no  pride  to 
prevent  my  saying  that  it  would  have  been  better  if  I 
had.  It  would  have  saved  me  some  reproach  and  your 
correspondent  some  trouble.  The  citation  makes  Ne- 
ander say  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  "  the  fun- 
damental article  of  the  Christian  faith,  the  essential 
contents  of  Christianity  summed  up  in  brief."  The 
first  clause  should  be  omitted.  It  appears  that  Nean- 
der, in  that  passage  of  his  history,  makes  a  distinction 
between  "fundamental"  and  "essential,"  a  distinction 
of  which  the  sincere  disbeliever  in  the  doctrine  ought 
to  have  the  full  advantage.  I  suppose  my  authority 
was  misled  by  the  language  of  the  context,  where 
the  Messiahship  of  Christ  is  spoken  of  as  the  "  funda- 
mental" doctrine.  Had  my  very  near  neighbor,  my 
fellow-officer  in  College,  whose  daily  walks  cross  mine, 
whom  I  saw  in  your  office  at  the  very  moment  when 
he  was  probably  arranging  for  the  publication  of  his 
article,  intimated  to  me  his  surprise,  I  might  have  re- 
lieved him  in  a  word,  and  would  willingly  have  pub- 
lished the  correction.  But  perhaps  this  would  not  have 
served  the  purpose. 

Now,  as  to  what  sort  of  a  Trinitarian  Neander  was. 
This  is  a  matter  of  very  little  importance  to  my  ser- 
mon, but  "  E.  A."  has  undertaken  an  exposition  of  it 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  183 

which  deserves  a  moment's  attention.  He  asserts  that 
according  to  Neander,  "  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in- 
cludes the  essential  elements  of  Christianity,  as  husks 
include  the  ear,  or  as  wheat  may  be  included  in  a  col- 
lection of  chaff."  Fortunately,  there  is  the  less  need 
to  restate  or  interpret  the  great  historian's  opinions,  as 
he  has  set  them  forth  distinctly  enough  in  more  than 
one  of  his  productions,  some  of  which  are  translated 
into  our  language  and  are  commonly  accessible.  Who- 
ever is  interested  in  this  question  will  do  well,  having 
marked  the  representation  just  given,  to  turn  to  those 
passages  of  the  "  History,"  easily  found  by  the  ample 
index  in  each  volume,  where  the  doctrine  is  discussed 
in  connection  with  the  successive  periods  of  the  doc- 
trinal development  of  the  Church  ;  and  also  to  cor- 
responding passages  in  the  "  History  of  Christian 
Dogmas,"  in  two  volumes  (Bohn)  edited  by  Dr.  Ja- 
cobi,  and  translated  by  Ryland,  especially  to  the  sec- 
tions (Vol.  II.  pp.  645  -  650)  treating  of  the  belief  as 
unfolded  in  the  third  principal  Period.  It  will  very 
soon  appear  how  he  distinguishes  between  all  heresies 
on  this  subject  and  the  true  faith  of  the  Church.  He 
not  only  affirms  that  "  the  essence  of  all  Christianity  is 
contained  in  it,"  but  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
"  the  perfect  development  of  the  doctrine  about  Christ ;  " 
and  "  that  it  is  rooted  in  the  centre-point  of  Christian- 
ity" In  the  "  Life  of  Christ "  he  says,  "  Christ  does 
not  refuse  the  title  given  to  him  by  Thomas ;  he 
acknowledges  his  exclamation  ('My  Lord  and  my 
God ! ')  as  an  expression  of  the  true  faith."  In  the 
paragraph  after  that  one  from  which  "  E.  A."  chiefly 
quotes,  Neander  asserts  the  "  connection "  of  the  doc- 


184  COMMUNICATIONS   TO    THE 

trine  of  the  Trinity  with  "  the  fundamental  conscious- 
ness of  Christianity."  In  the  next  following  occur 
several  sentences  which  we  prefer  to  give  entire,  rather 
than  in  "  E.  A.'s  "  somewhat  fragmentary  representa- 
tions :  "  Only  we  are  not  to  forget  that  the  practical  or 
economical  Triad,  which  starts  from  God  revealed  in 
Christ,  or  from  the  position  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  that 
God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  to  Himself, 
must  ever  be  considered  as  the  groundwork  of  the 
whole,  the  'original  element  from  which  the  specula- 
tive, or  ontological,  view  is  derived ;  a  position  which 
we  shall  find  substantiated  in  tracing,  as  we  now  pro- 
pose to  do,  the  historical  development  of  this  doctrine 
in  these  first  centuries.  This  economico- practical  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  constituted  from  the  beginning  the 
fundamental  consciousness  of  the  Catholic  Church,  while 
forming  itself  in  its  conflict  with  the  opposite  theories 
of  the  heretical  sects.  It  is  that  which  forms  the  basis 
of  the  true  unity  of  the  Church,  and  the  identity  of  the 
Christian  consciousness  in  all  ages."  The  next  sen- 
tence, as  rendered  by  Torrey,  "  E.  A.,"  who  advocates 
complete  quotations  and  dislikes  "  mutilation,"  cuts  in 
two,  stopping  short  with  the  word  "  forms."  "  But  the 
intellectual  process  of  development,  by  means  of  which 
the  economico-practical  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was 
reduced  to  the  ontological,  was  a  gradual  one,  and  must 
necessarily  run  through  manifold  opposite  forms,  until 
it  issued  at  last  in  some  mode  of  apprehension,  satisfy- 
ing the  demand  of  unity  in  the  Christian  consciousness 
and  in  the  activity  of  the  dialectic  reason."  These 
words  conclude  a  paragraph,  and  they  have  a  bearing 
on  the  historical  argument. 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  185 

Again,  speaking  of  the  establishment  of  the  Feast 
of  the  Holy  Trinity,  after  contrasting  it  with  the  Feast 
of  the  Virgin,  and  observing  that  it  has  not,  like  many 
festivals,  a  date  from  any  special  historical  fact  or  inci- 
dent, Neander  goes  on  thus  :  — 

"Yet  if  there  was  something  in  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness that  resisted  the  introduction  of  a  festival 
of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  Mary,  there  was,  on 
the  other  hand,  an  appropriateness  in  a  festival  of  the 
Trinity,  constituting,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  terminus  to 
the  entire  cycle  of  festivals  in  the  year,  which  would 
recommend  it  to  general  acceptance,  and  gradually 
overcome  the  objections  which  might  be  raised  on  the 
ground  of  innovation.  For  it  corresponded  with  the 
relation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  to  the  sum  total 
of  Christian  consciousness,  that  as  this  doctrine  has  for 
its  presupposition  the  full  development  of  all  that  is 
contained  in  this  consciousness,  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness arrives  therein  at  a  statement  which  exhausts  the 
whole  subject-matter :  so  a  festival  having  reference  to 
this  doctrine  would  form  the  terminus  of  the  cycle  of 
festivals,  commencing  with  Christ's  nativity  ;  and  if  this 
festival  grew  in  the  first  place  out  of  the  significance 
which  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  gained  for  the 
speculative  and  mystical  theology  of  these  times,  yet 
this  solemnity  obtained  a  position  which  was  calculated 
to  direct  attention  to  the  original  and  essential  signifi- 
cance of  this  doctrine." 

Whether,  in  view  of  this  language,  especially  of  that 
printed  in  Italics,  the  remarks  that  Neander  makes 
"  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  to  include  the  essential 
elements  of  Christianity  as  husks  include  the  ear  or  as 
wheat  may  be  included  in  a  collection  of  chaff,"  can  be 
considered  as  a  very  successful  or  happy  reproduction 
of  Neander's  idea,  may  be  judged  by  the  readers  of 


186  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

both.  If,  as  I  understand  "E.  A."  to  state,  there  is 
"  nothing  "  in  that  idea  "  to  which  a  Unitarian  will  not 
cordially  assent,"  I  have  only  to  say  it  is  the  best  of  all 
recent  intelligence.  That  there  is  some  agreement, 
though  on  terms  of  vast  inequality,  between  the  main 
drift  of  my  sermon  and  Neader's  practical  handling  of 
the  same  theme,  in  carefully  separating  the  spiritual 
import  from  the  "  dialectic  theories,"  though  a  theory  is 
given  —  is  what  I  should  have  ventured  to  suppose, 
and  what  most  of  those  who  have  noticed  my  sermon 
have  suggested.  But  of  this  I  have  no  right  to  be 
confident. 

Neander's  historical  judgment,  expressed  in  the  last 
quoted  passage  but  one,  and  sustained  through  his  great 
work,  will  probably  present  itself  as  some  offset  in  point 
of  authority,  to  the  assertion  of  those  who  say  that  the 
Trinity  was  unknown  to  the  early  Christian  centuries. 

In  another  article,  "  E.  A."  has  pointed  out  several 
instances  in  which  I  have  so  omitted  the  context,  in 
Scriptural  quotations,  as  to  leave  out  of  sight  language 
that  ascribes  dependence,  subjection,  etc.,  to  the  person 
of  Jesus  in  the  mediatorial  office.  I  believe  I  have 
explicitly  and  repeatedly  admitted  in  my  sermon  the 
existence  and  natural  force  of  that  whole  class  of  texts ; 
nay,  have  recognized  them  as  indispensable  to  the  truth, 
and  most  precious  to  the  believer.  It  was  not  pertinent 
to  my  object  to  copy  them,  while  I  was  striving  to  bring 
out  especially  the  other  side  of  the  twofold  whole,  any 
more  than  it  would  be  the  Register's  object  to  copy  and 
commend  much  of  those  four  fifths  of  my  volume  to 
which  it  probably  consents.  But  to  expect  to  conceal 
them  from  the  reader's  knowledge,  or  to  wish  to  do  it, 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  187 

would  imply  a  presumption  or  a  falsity  which  I  know 
my  good  friend  would  not  impute  to  me.  All  other 
matters  of  difference  between  us  I  cheerfully  submit  to 
the  public,  and  to  the  Master. 

In  another  quarter  I  have  been  alleged,  it  is  said,  to 
have  made  a  wrong  quotation  from  St.  Paul,  because  I 
have  translated  the  original  word  (KOIZ/WJ/UZ),  in  one  of 
the  Apostle's  benedictions,  by  our  word  "fellowship," 
whereas  the  common  version  has  it  "  communion ; " 
giving  rise  to  a  humorous  intimation  that  I  am  joined 
to  an  indefinite  company  of  blunderers  who  have  mis- 
taken the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  for  the  Bible.  But 
when  it  is  remembered  that  the  same  Greek  word  has 
"  fellowship "  for  a  legitimate  meaning,  and  is  actually 
translated  "fellowship"  in  Acts  ii.  42,  1  Cor.  i.  9,  2 
Cor.  viii.  4,  Gal.  ii.  9,  and  Phil.  i.  5.  I  apprehend 
that  scholars,  and  all  such  as  happen  to  know  that 
St.  Paul  did  not  write  to  the  Corinthians  in  English, 
will  acquit  me  on  this  count. 

Whether  these  particulars  really  affect  the  general 
force  of  the  train  of  thought  offered  in  the  discourse, 
or  whether  that  force,  be  it  less  or  more,  would  be 
much  weakened  if  all  these  particulars  were  otherwise, 
I  must  refer  to  the  candid  decision  of  minds  more  im- 
partial than  I  can  pretend  to  be. 

Forbear  with  me  if  I  beg  further  for  space  to  appeal 
briefly  to  the  nobler  and  more  reverential  moods  of 
another  of  your  correspondents,  "  E.  P.  S."  Why  seek 
to  throw  odium  on  any  sincere  student,  or  conviction, 
by  such  phrases  as  "  new  light,"  "  infallible  guides," 
"  flaunting  in  the  faces  of  his  new  friends  the  declara- 
tion of  his  faith,"  "  the  jubilant  neophyte  "  ?  I  want 


188  COMMUNICATIONS   TO   THE 

to  say  to  all  this, — My  brother!  What  better  thing  can 
we  do  for  one  another,  in  this  life  of  so  much  darkness 
and  weakness,  than  report  earnestly  to  one  another 
what  we  see  or  honestly  think  we  see,  and  tell  out  any 
joy  we  have  found  ?  "  We  can  do  nothing  against  the 
truth,  but  for  the  truth."  If  our  joy  is  unfounded,  it 
will  be  taken  from  us  soon  enough.  If  it  is  excessive, 
there  are  sorrows  enough  to  weigh  it  down.  One  of 
these  with  me,  is  that  I  am  made  by  my  faith  to  be  a 
cause  of  offence  to  many  whom  I  esteem  and  love,  — 
E.  P.  S.  among  them.  If,  as  I  confess  to  be  possible,  I 
have  added  to  the  inevitable  provocation  by  any  harsh- 
ness or  bitterness,  it  has  been  against  a  steady  effort  to 
the  contrary ;  and  I  beg  forgiveness  of  all  that  feel 
aggrieved.  I  am  sure  I  never  felt  it  so  easy  to  be 
charitable  to  all  men  as  now.  Would  to  God  these 
friends  could  so  see  the  revelation  of  God's  Tri-unity 
in  all  its  real  and  profound  relations,  that  it  would  cease 
to  be  a  vital  interest,  whether  for  speculation  or  for  sar- 
casm, what  exposition  different  theologians  may  give  of 
the  mode  in  which  the  doctrine  is  to  be  held  or  applied ! 
Enough  that  the  redeeming  and  consoling  result  is 
reached  and  held,  and  by  each  in  his  own  way.  Would 
to  God  we  all  could  have  the  light  and  power  of  this 
belief  so  borne  in  upon  our  souls  that  the  ruling  desire 
should  be,  not  to  defend  a  party,  but  to  communicate 
the  gracious  gift,  and  to  behold  others  glad  and  strong 
in  it !  Meantime  it  is  not  too  late  to  recall  those  days 
of  "  Channing  and  Ware,"  of  Greenwood  and  Norton 
and  Nichols,  when  themes  so  high  and  holy  were 
touched  with  soberness,  dignity,  and  awe,  when  an  ele- 
vated culture  forbade  all  flippancy  and  levity,  when 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  189 

pulpit  personalities  were  unknown,  and  when  opponents 
did  not  court  the  advantage  of  one  another's  violations 
of  patience  or  self-respect.  Not  ready  to  cast  the  first 
stone,  I  am  yours,  not  without  regret  for  the  past,  but 
with  hope  for  the  future,  and  with  unfailing  regard  for 
yourself. 


REVIEW  OF  DR.  HUNTING! 


MR.  EDITOR:  —  I  greatly  regret  the  necessity  of 
taking  any  notice  of  Dr.  Huntington's  communication 
in  the  last  number  of  the  Register.  I  have  no  taste 
for  newspaper  controversy;  and  in  the  two  articles  to 
which  Dr.  Huntington  refers,  it  was  my  purpose  to 
quote  him,  and  Neander,  and  the  New  Testament,  so 
fully  and  fairly,  that  he  should  have  no  ground  of  com- 
plaint, and  that  there  should  be  no  need  of  a  rejoinder, 
if  a  reply  were  made.  Nothing  has,  in  fact,  been  said 
or  quoted  by  Dr.  Jluntington,  which  in  the  slightest 
degree  invalidates  any  statement  I  have  there  made ; 
but  through  some  strange  misapprehension,  he  has 
ascribed  to  me  certain  extraordinary  statements  which 
I  have  not  made.  In  refuting  these  imaginary  state- 
ments, he  is  triumphantly  successful.  He  proves  con- 
clusively that  Neander  was  a  Trinitarian ;  a  fact  which 
I  took  care  to  mention  near  the  beginning  of  my 
article. 

Allow  me,  then,  Mr.  Editor,  to  state  clearly  what 
I  am  charged  with  saying,  and  what  I  actually  did  say. 


190  COMMUNICATIONS   TO   THE 

I  am  sorry,  indeed,  to  be  thus  compelled  to  ask  the 
attention  of  your  readers  to  a  matter  in  itself  of  so  little 
consequence ;  but  it  will  afford  an  opportunity,  per- 
haps, for  the  illustration  of  something  more  important. 

Speaking  of  the  question,  —  which,  however,  I  did  not 
raise  or  discuss,  —  "  as  to  what  sort  of  a  Trinitarian  Ne- 
ander  was,"  Dr.  Huntington  says,  "  *  E.  A.'  has  under- 
taken an  exposition  of  it  which  deserves  a  moment's 
attention.  He  asserts  that  according  to  Neander,  [the 
Italics  are  mine]  '  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  includes 
the  essential  elements  of  Christianity,  as  husks  include 
the  ear,  or  as  wheat  may  be  included  in  a  collection  of 
chaff.' "  He  again  ascribes  to  me  "  the  remark  that 
Neander  makes  '  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  to  include 
the  essential  elements  of  Christianity  as  husks  include 
the  ear/"  &c.  He  further  "understands  'E.  A.'  to 
state,  that  there  is  *  nothing'  in  Neander's  idea  [of 
the  Trinity]  Ho  which  a  Unitarian  will  not  cordially 
assent/  " 

What  I  said  was  this  :  — 

[Here  E.  A.  quotes  the  principal  part  of  the  second 
paragraph  of  his  first  article,  to  ^which  the  reader  is 
requested  to  turn.  See  pp.  162,  163.] 

What  ground,  now,  could  Dr.  Huntington  have  imag- 
ined himself  to  have  for  asserting  that  I  represented 
Neander  as  making  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  include  • 
the  essential  elements  of  Christianity  as  husks  include 
the  ear,  &c.  ?  Have  I  ascribed  any  such  language  to 
him  ?  Please  look  again  at  the  words  in  question.  In 
what  way  could  I  have  contrived  more  clearly  to  ex- 
press the  sentiment  as  my  own,  and  not  another's  ? 

A  very  few  words  on  another  point.    I  am  sorry  that 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  191 

Dr.  Huntington  should  have  thought  it  necessary  to 
introduce  personal  matters  into  his  communication,  the 
more  so  as  he  labors  under  a  misapprehension  in  re- 
gard to  one  of  the  principal  facts.  At  the  time  to 
which  he  refers,  my  whole  article  was  in  type.  It 
had  been  given  to  the  publisher  of  the  Register  just 
a  week  before.  So  far  as  Dr.  Huntington  is  per- 
sonally concerned,  it  would  have  been  more  agreeable 
to  me  to  have  pointed  out  his  mistake  to  him  privately, 
and  to  have  allowed  him  to  correct  it  in  his  own  way. 
But  it  appeared  to  me  that  it  would  promote  the  cause  of 
Christian  truth  and  charity  to  show  by  large  quotations 
the  contrast  between  his  view  of  the  importance  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  that  of  Neander.  This 
Dr.  Huntington  could  hardly  have  been  expected  to  do. 
I  therefore  chose  to  make  the  correction  a  public  one. 
I  would,  however,  now  respectfully  suggest  to  Dr. 
Huntington,  that  as  the  Register  will  probably  reach 
a  very  small  proportion  of  the  readers  of  his  sermons, 
it  may  be  well  for  him  to  make  the  correction  in  some 
Orthodox  newspaper  of  extensive  circulation,  as,  for 
example,  the  New  York  Independent. 

I  regret,  however,  to  observe,  that  our  friend  has 
not  got  his  quotation  exactly  right  yet.  He  had  as- 
cribed to  Neander  the  statement,  that  "  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  is  the  fundamental  article  of  the  Christian 
faith,  —  the  essential  contents  of  Christianity  summed 
up  in  brief."  Now  he  says  :  — 

"  The  first  clause  should  be  omitted.  It  appears  that 
Neander,  in  that  passage  of  his  history,  makes  a  distinc- 
tion between  '  fundamental '  and  '  essential,'  a  distinction 
of  which  the  sincere  disbeliever  in  the  doctrine  ought  to 
have  the  full  advantage." 


192  COMMUNICATIONS   TO   THE 

Here  Dr.  Huntington,  I  conceive,  misunderstands 
Neander.  I  know  of  no  intelligible  distinction,  which 
is  not  either  merely  arbitrary  or  etymological,  between 
the  meaning  of  the  terms  "  fundamental "  and  "  essen- 
tial," as  applied  to  Christian  doctrines.  Neander  makes 
no  such  distinction  as  Dr.  Huntington  imagines.  He 
does  not  say,  as  I  am  very  sorry  to  be  compelled  to  re- 
peat, that  "  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  essential 
contents  of  Christianity,  summed  up  in  brief."  That 
would  be  the  same  as  calling  it  fundamental.  He  says 
that  u  that  doctrine  presupposes,  in  order  to  its  being  un- 
derstood in  its  real  significance  for  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness," that  is,  in  order  that  it  may  have  any  prac- 
tical value,  "the  fundamental  article  of  the  Christian 
faith,"  namely,  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus :  and  that  ac- 
cordingly "  we  recognize  in  it  the  essential  contents  of 
Christianity,  summed  up  in  brief."  I  do  not  deem  it 
necessary  to  give  any  new  illustration  of  the  distinction 
between  what  a  thing  is  and  what  is  contained  in  it." 
The  expression  which  Neander  uses,  "we  recognize 
therein,"  taken  by  itself,  may  admit  of  the  sense  which 
Dr.  Huntington  gives  it ;  but  it  certainly  does  not  re- 
quire this  interpretation.  On  the  contrary,  to  give  it 
this  meaning  here,  is  to  make  Neander  contradict  what 
he  has  just  said. 

Neander's  style  is  not  remarkable  for  clearness ;  his 
sentences  are  sometimes  long  and  involved,  and  even 
ungrammatical ;  and  his  mode  of  thought  is  peculiarly 
German.  Still,  his  general  meaning  can  seldom  be 
mistaken  by  an  attentive  reader.  In  my  former  article, 
I  avoided,  as  far  as  possible,  stating  his  views  in  my  own 
language,  and  left  him,  by  ample  quotations,  to  speak 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  193 

for  himself.  Requesting  the  reader  who  takes  an  inter- 
est in  the  matter  to  recur  to  those  quotations,  I  propose 
to  give  some  additional  illustrations  of  the  broad  distinc- 
tion between  what  he  calls  "  the  practical,"  or  "  econom- 
ico-practical  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,"  "  which  constituted 
from  the  beginning  the  fundamental  consciousness  of  the 
Catholic  Church,"  and  "  the  speculative  or  ontological " 
doctrine.  The  latter  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  it 
appears  in  most  of  the  creeds  of  the  Church,  and  in  that 
of  Dr.  Huntington ;  it  is  characterized  by  the  fact,  that 
it  undertakes  to  define  the  mode  of  the  divine  existence, 
and  to  point  out  the  mutual  relations  of  the  "  persons," 
as  it  calls  them,  in  the  Godhead.  (In  connection  with 
this,  it  assumes  also  to  define  the  mode  in  which  God 
was  united  with  the  man  Jesus  Christ.)  In  the  form 
in  which  Dr.  Huntington  receives  it,  for  example,  it 
teaches  that  in  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  there  are  three 
"  coequal  persons,"  each  God,  and  all  but  one  God,  to 
each  of  whom  divine  worship  is  to  be  offered,  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Son,  however,  being  a  "  richer  worship  "  than 
that  of  the  Father ;  it  speaks  of  the  eternal  generation 
of  the  Son  from  the  Father,  and  of  the  eternal  proces- 
sion of  the  Holy  Spirit  from  both. 

In  this  and  in  the  other  forms  in  which  it  appears  in 
creeds,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this  doctrine  is  not  only 
not  expressly  taught  in  any  passage  of  Scripture,  but 
that  it  does  not  admit  of  being  stated  in  Scripture  lan- 
guage. It  is,  confessedly,  wholly  a  doctrine  of  inference. 

On  the  other  hand,  "the  practical  doctrine  of  the 

Trinity  "  does  not,  as  Neander  explains  it,  meddle  with 

the  question  of  the  mode  of  the  divine  existence ;  it  says 

nothing  of  three  coequal,  coeternal  persons  in  the  God- 

13 


194  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

head,  each  of  whom  is  a  distinct  object  of  worship.  It 
is  concerned  only  with  the  relations  of  God  to  man.  It 
recognizes  God,  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  all  things,  as 
having  revealed  himself  in  and  through  Jesus  Christ,  as 
the  merciful  Father  of  men,  the  God  of  love ;  and  as 
communicating  spiritual  light  and  life,  joy  and  strength, 
to  every  believing  soul,  by  his  Holy  Spirit.  It  also 
recognizes  the  fact  that  God  was  so  united  with  Christ 
that  he  speaks  to  us  with  divine  authority ;  and  that  in 
him  we  behold,  as  Neander  expresses  it,  "  the  perfect 
man  as  the  image  of  the  perfect  God."  In  him  the 
divine  and  human  were  morally  blended  into  one. 

As  Dr.  Huntington  has  perverted  the  meaning  of  one 
of  my  sentences  by  applying  it  to  a  subject  to  which 
I  did  not  apply  it,  I  will  repeat  a  part  of  the  extract 
given  in  my  former  article,  from  Neander's  "  Planting 
and  Training,"  &c.,  II.  56,  Bonn's  ed.  Neander  there 
says : — 

"  Both  John  and  Paul  place  the  essence  of  Christian 
theism  in  worshipping  God  as  the  Father,  through  the 
Son,  in  the  communion  of  the  divine  life  which  he  has 
established,  or  in  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Spirit; 

and  this  is  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 

in  the  connection  of  Christian  experience.  It  has  an 
essentially  practical  and  historical  significance  and  foun- 
dation :  it  is  the  doctrine  of  God  revealed  in  humanity, 
which  teaches  men  to  recognize  in  God  not  only  the 
original  source  of  existence,  but  also  of  salvation  and 
sanctification." 

On  the  view  of  the  Trinity  which  Neander  here  pre- 
sents as  constituting  it  a  practical  doctrine,  I  remarked 
that  "  there  is  nothing  in  it  to  which  a  Unitarian  will 
not  cordially  assent."  Is  not  this  plainly  so  ?  Is  not 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  195 

the  worship  described  in  the  first  sentence  Unitarian, 
and  a  very  different  thing  from  worshipping  the  Father, 
and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  distinct  persons  in 
a  Trinity  ?  Again,  do  not  all  Unitarians  recognize  in 
God  "not  only  the  original  source  of  existence,  but 
also  of  salvation  and  sanctification  ?  " 

That  Neander  himself  rested  in  this  simple,  practical 
view,  I  have  never  said,  or  implied,  but  the  contrary. 
In  the  sentence  which  follows,  and  which  I  quoted  in 
my  previous  article,  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  specula- 
tive view,  implying,  as  I  understood  it,  his  own  recep- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  "  an  original  triad  in  God."  But 
Dr.  Huntington  "  understands  '  E.  A.'  to  state  that  there 
is  '  nothing '  in  Neander 's  idea  [i.  e.  of  the  Trinity,  which 
the  context  requires  the  reader  to  supply]  *  to  which  a 
Unitarian  will  not  cordially  assent.'"  Here,  as  else- 
where in  his  article,  all  that  gives  the  slightest  appear- 
ance of  plausibility  to  his  criticisms,  is  his  complete 
misunderstanding  and  consequent  perversion  of  what 
I  actually  said. 

The  length  of  this  article  has  so  far  exceeded  reason- 
able limits,  that  I  must  omit  much  which  I  wished  to 
say  and  to  quote.  But  I  will  give  the  introductory 
paragraph  of  Neander's  remarks  on  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  in  his  "  History  of  Christian  Dogmas,"  Bonn's 
ed.,  Vol.  I.  p.  130.  He  says :  — 

"In  reference  to  the  historical  development  of  this 
doctrine,  we  must  distinguish  between  its  practical  or 
economical  importance,  and  its  speculative  construction. 
Its  practical,  Christian  value  is  closely  connected  with 
the  doctrine  of  Jesus  the  Redeemer,  and  presents  the 
threefold  distinction  of  Christian  Theism,  the  doctrine 
of  one  God  as  the  Creator  and  Father  of  men,  who  has 


196  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

revealed  himself  in  Christ,  —  of  the  Son  of  God  through 
whom  he  has  revealed  himself,  —  and  of  the  source  of 
divine  life  which  has  been  conveyed  from  the  Son  to 
the  human  race.  This  doctrine  of  God,  the  Creator, 
Redeemer,  and  Sanctifier  of  humanity  in  Christ  was  es- 
sential to  the  Christian  consciousness,  and  therefore  has 
existed  from  the  beginning  in  the  Christian  Church. 
(Compare  2  Cor.  xiii.  13,  Rom.  xi.  36.)  In  the  various 
recensions  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  it  is  announced  as  the 
peculiar  article  of  Christian  faith  in  opposition  to  Juda- 
ism and  Paganism,  and  has  been  received  by  the  whole 
Church.  [Here  I  remark  that  everybody  knows  that 
the  Apostles'  Creed,  so  called,  is  purely  Unitarian.]  But 
the  intellectual  construction  of  this  doctrine  is  something 
different,  and  was  not  fixed  till  a  later  period  in  that  def- 
inite, dogmatic  form  of  expression  which  now  prevails. 
We  have  to  treat  of  the  manner  in  which  the  relation  of 
the  Trinity  to  Unity  was  determined,  —  of  the  specula- 
tive construction  of  the  doctrine  of  God's  being  in  Christ, 
and  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  connection  with  the  Unity  of 
the  Divine  Being." 

In  the  second  volume  of  his  Church  History,  as  trans- 
lated by  Torrey,  p.  348,  note,  Neander  observes  that, 
among  the  subjects  which  Gregory  Nazianzen  (in  the 
latter  half  of  the  fourth  century)  speaks  of  as  discussed 
in  the  public  teaching  of  those  times, 

"he  names  as  the  principal  thing  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  although  this  doctrine  surely  derives  its  Chris- 
tian importance  only  from  its  connection  with  that  doc- 
trine which  Gregory  represents  as  a  subordinate  one  [the 
doctrine  of  redemption]  ;  although  entire  Christianity 
starts  not  from  a  speculative  doctrine  concerning  the  Di- 
vine Being,  but  from  the  actual  revelation  of  God,  as  a 
fact  in  history." 

Dr.  Huntington  quotes  a  sentence  from  Neander, 
which  I  gave  only  in  part,  and  intimates  that  I  have 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  197 

exposed  myself  to  the  charge  of  "mutilation."  I  am 
glad  he  has  quoted  it  fully,  as  every  reader  must  per- 
ceive that  no  injustice  was  done  to  Neander  by  the 
omission,  and  that  I  could  have  had  no  motive  for  omit- 
ting it,  except  to  save  room.  It  has,  as  Dr.  Huntington 
remarks,  "  a  bearing  on  the  historical  argument,"  a  sub- 
ject into  which  I  did  not  pretend  to  enter.  But  its  bear- 
ing, the  reader  will  notice,  is  directly  against  Dr.  Hun- 
tington's  assumption,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has 
been  received  in  the  Christian  Church  in  all  ages.  This 
is  a  point  which  I  should  be  very  glad  to  illustrate ;  but 
I  have  already,  Mr.  Editor,  occupied  far  too  much  of 
your  space. 

With  respect  to  Dr.  Huntington's  mode  of  quoting 
Scripture,  of  which  examples  were  given  in  the  Register 
for  January  28, 1  only  wish  to  call  the  attention  of  your 
readers  to  the  fact,  that  he  defends  it  as  proper. 

E.  A. 


VI. 


GRADUAL  DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  DOCTRINE   OF  THE 
TRINITY. 

MR.  EDITOR  :  —  In  former  articles,  I  have  illustrated 
the  distinction  which  Neander  so  often  makes  between 
what  he  calls  "  the  practical "  or  "  economical "  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  and  "  the  speculative  or  ontological 
view."  The  former  he  regards  as  "  the  groundwork" 
of  the  latter,  "  the  original  element  from  which  it  is 
derived."  It  "  starts  from  God  revealed  in  Christ,  or 


198  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

from  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  that  God  was 
in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself."  It  has 
nothing  to  do  with  any  distinctions  in  the  divine  nature. 
We  recognize  in  it,  according  to  Neander,  simply  "  the 
threefold  relation  in  which  God  stands  to  mankind,  as 
primal  ground,  mediator,  and  end,  —  Creator,  Redeemer, 
and  Sanctifier,  —  in  which  threefold  relation  the  whole 
Christian  knowledge  of  God  is  completely  announced." 
It  is,  in  fact,  all  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Messiah- 
ship  of  Jesus,  which,  as  Neander  everywhere  main- 
tains, is  the  only  essential  article  of  the  Christian  faith. 
In  this  "  practical  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,"  I  again  re- 
peat, there  are  no  elements  which  do  not  belong  to 
pure  Unitarianism.  And  it  is  "  this  economico-practical 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  "  —  not  the  doctrine  of  three  co- 
equal persons  in  one  God,  not  any  doctrine  about  the 
mode  of  the  divine  existence  —  which,  according  to 
Neander, 

"  constituted  from  the  beginning  the  fundamental  con- 
sciousness of  the  Catholic  Church,  while  [this  Church  was] 
forming  itself  in  its  conflict  with  the  opposite  theories  of 
the  heretical  sects.  It  is  that  which  forms  the  basis  of 
the  true  unity  of  the  Church  and  the  identity  of  the 
Christian  consciousness  in  all  ages.  But  the  intellectual 
process  of  development,  by  means  of  which  the  econom- 
ico-practical doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  reduced  to  the 
ontological,  was  a  gradual  one,  and  must  necessarily 
run  through  manifold  opposite  forms,  until  it  issued  at 
last  in  some  mode  of  apprehension,  satisfying  the  de- 
mand of  unity  in  the  Christian  consciousness,  and  in 
the  activity  of  the  dialectic  reason."  (History  of  the 
Christian  Church,  Torrey's  translation,  I.  572  -  574.) 

On  the   sentence   last   quoted,  Dr.   Huntington  re- 
marks :  — 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  199 

"  Neander's  historical  judgment  expressed  in  this 
passage,  and  sustained  through  his  great  work,  will 
probably  present  itself  as  some  offset  in  point  of  author- 
ity, to  the  assertion  of  those  who  say  that  the  Trinity 
was  unknown  to  the  early  Christian  centuries." 

Here  let  us  have  an  understanding  of  terms.  Those 
who  say  that  the  Trinity  was  unknown  to  the  early  Chris- 
tian centuries,  mean  by  "  the  Trinity  "  the  doctrine,  as  it 
is  expressed  in  the  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism,  that 
"  there  are  three  persons  in  the  Godhead,  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  these  three  are  one 
God,  the  same  in  substance,  equal  in  power  and  glory." 
This  is  now,  I  suppose,  the  prevalent  form  of  the  "  onto- 
logical"  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  It  is,  as  I  under- 
stand it,  the  doctrine  of  Dr.  Huntington,  though  he 
connects  with  it  some  other  remarkable  propositions. 
He  maintains,  for  example,  that  the  Son  is  "  eternally 
begotten  of  the  Father,"  and  at  the  same  time,  that 
"  his  personality  is  self-existent  and  supreme ; "  that 
prayer  to  him  is  a  "richer  worship"  than  prayer  to 
the  Father ;  that  when  "  the  Saviour  suffered,  God 
suffered,"  and  not  merely  "  the  second  person  of  the 
divine  Tri-unity,"  but  that  it  was  "  as  if  the  Father 
said, Lo  !  one  mercy  more,  the  last  and  might- 
iest. I  can  suffer  for  my  children,  I  can  come  in  the 
flesh,  I  can  be  one  of  them.  In  that  incarnation  I  can 
ache  and  weep  and  sorrow  for  them  and  with  them: 
all  their  stripes  can  be  laid  upon  me.  All  their  in- 
firmities can  cling  to  me.  I  can  die  as  they  die." 
(Christian  Believing  and  Living,  pp.  362,  524,  528, 
390,  394.)  On  these  views  I  have  no  desire  to 
comment.  I  respect  profoundly  the  earnest  religious 


200  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

feeling  with  which  they  are  connected  in  Dr.  Hunting- 
ton's  mind ;  and  I  am  willing  that  all  readers  should 
judge  for  themselves  of  their  resemblance  to  the  teach- 
ings of  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  I  cannot  suppose  that 
it  will  be  pretended  by  any  one  that  these  propositions 
have  been  the  common  faith  of  the  Christian  Church 
in  all  ages  and  nations.  I  therefore  confine  my  inquiry 
to  the  simple  question,  Was  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
as  above  defined,  generally  received  by  Christians  in 
the  early  centuries  ?  And,  in  particular,  Does  Ne- 
ander  represent  this  to  have  been  the  case  ? 

Neander,  in  the  first  volume  of  his  Church  History, 
pp.  574-610  of  Torrey's  translation,  traces  the  develop- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  first  three 
centuries.  After  alluding  to  "  the  form  in  which  the 
Logos-idea  was  taught  and  transmitted  in  the  tradition 
of  the  Church,"  "  namely,  as  the  idea  of  a  spirit,  first 
begotten  of  God  and  subordinate  to  him,"  he  goes  on 
to  remark  that  "there  was  besides  this,  another  view 
of  the  doctrine  concerning  the  Trinity,  which  may  be 
designated,  after  the  customary  language  of  this  period, 
as  that  of  the  Monarchians"  "  They  felt  a  common  in- 
terest in  preserving  the  unity  of  the  consciousness  of  God, 
which  made  them  unwilling  to  acknowledge  any  other 
divine  being  besides  one  God,  the  Father."  Neander 
explains  their  opposition  to  the  "  hypostatical  Logos- 
doctrine  "  by  the  fact  that  "  the  doctrine  of  the  divine 
unity  had  been  deeply  impressed  on  their  minds  by 
the  earliest  catechetical  instruction  which  they  received, 
and  that  the  Logos-idea  did  not  originally  belong  to  the 
primitive,  simple  confession  of  faith  at  baptism,  as  in 
fact  it  does  not  occur  in  the  so-called  Apostolic  Creed." 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  201 

How  defective  their  doctrinal  instruction  must  have 
been  !  He  cites  in  a  note  the  following  passage  of 
Tertullian,  which  I  will  translate,  as  it  throws  some 
light  on  the  question  about  the  prevalence  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  in  the  early  ages.  Tertullian 


"All  the  simple,  not  to  call  them  unwise  and  un- 
learned, who  always  constitute  the  majority  of  believers, 
since  the  rule  of  faith  itself  leads  them  from  the  many 
gods  of  the  heathen  world  to  the  one  true  God,  are 

startled  at  the  doctrine  of  a  Trinity We,  they 

say,  maintain  the  monarchy."     (Adv.  Praxeam,  c.  3.) 

Tertullian,  who  bears  such  unsuspicious  testimony  to 
the  Unitarianism  of  the  majority  of  Christians  in  his 
day,  flourished  A.  D.  200.  This  testimony  of  Tertul- 
lian is  confirmed  by  Origen,  who  flourished  A.  D.  230, 
in  a  striking  passage  to  which  Neander  refers,  and  of 
which  he  gives  the  original  (in  part)  in  a  note  (p.  578). 
Origen  says :  — 

"  There  are  some  who  partake  of  the  Logos  that 
was  in  the  beginning,  the  Logos  that  was  with  God, 

and  was  God ; but  others,  who  know  nothing  but 

Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified,  thinking  that  the  Logos 
made  flesh  is  the  whole  of  the  Logos,  are  acquainted 
with  Christ  only  according  to  the  flesh.  To  this  class 
belong  the  great  body  of  those  who  are  considered  be- 
lievers." (In  Joann.  T.  II.  c.  3.  Opp.  IV.  53.) 

Poor,  benighted  Christians  !  "  knowing,"  like  Paul, 
"  nothing  but  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified " !  who 
had  not  studied  the  philosophy  of  the  Platonists,  and 
had  no  relish  for  the  lofty  speculations  of  Origen  and 
his  school  concerning  the  Logos  before  the  incarnation, 


202  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

but  (as  Neander  understands  it)  identified  the  Logos, 
that  is,  what  was  divine  in  Christ,  with  the  Father  ! 

After  what  has  been  stated,  we  need  not  be  alto- 
gether surprised  at  the  remark  of  Neander  (p.  579), 
that  "  Monarchians  of  the  third  century  appeal  to  the 
agreement  of  the  older  Roman  bishops  with  their 
views."  Though,  as  he  observes,  "  modern  inquirers 
have  been  led  to  infer  from  this  circumstance,  that  the 
Monarchian  tenet  was  in  this  Church  originally  the  pre- 
vailing one,  while  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos  was  un- 
known to  it,"  Neander  takes  a  different  view.  He 
supposes  that  "  they  simply  took  advantage  of  the  more 
crude  and  undigested  form  of  the  doctrine  in  the  Ro- 
man Church  to  introduce  their  own."  (p.  580.)  I  do 
not  care  to  contend  for  anything  more  than  he  concedes. 

It  is  impossible  in  a  newspaper  article  to  go  into 
full  details  and  explanations ;  but  no  one  can  read  in- 
telligently the  account  which  Neander  gives  of  the 
different  classes  of  the  Monarchians  (pp.  576-585), 
without  perceiving  that  they  were  very  numerous.  I 
know  of  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Tertullian  and  Origen 
were  correct  in  speaking  of  them  as  constituting  the 
majority  of  believers,  that  is,  of  Gentile  Christians. 
As  to  the  Ebionites,  or  Jewish  Christians,  who  early 
separated  themselves  from  the  former,  it  is  well  known 
that  they  universally  rejected  the  doctrine  of  the  deity 
of  Christ. 

I  will  now  go  on  with  a  quotation  from  Neander. 
He  says :  — 

"  In  the  conflict  with  these  two  classes  of  the  Monarch- 
ians, the  Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  unfolded  itself, 
and  in  two  different  quarters,  in  the  Western  and  in 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  203 

the  Eastern  Church.  In  the  latter,  the  doctrine  of  sub- 
ordination became  firmly  established  in  connection  with 
the  hypostatical  view  of  the  Logos  [i.  e.  the  view  which 
regarded  the  Logos  as  a  person,  not  an  attribute  of 
God]  ;  since  in  the  controversy  with  the  Monarchians, 
who  denied  the  distinction  of  hypostases,  that  distinction 
became  still  more  prominently  set  forth.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  see  how  the  Western  mind,  starting  from  the 
doctrine  of  subordination  received  along  with  the  dis- 
tinction of  hypostases,  is  ever  striving  to  make  promi- 
nent the  unity  of  the  divine  essence  in  connection  with 
this  distinction.  The  designation  of  Christ  as  the  Logos 
could  have  been  known  from  the  Gospel  of  John,  with- 
out any  use  being  made  of  it,  however,  for  a  speculative 
exposition  of  the  doctrine  concerning  Christ.  This  Jirst 
took  place,  when  a  species  of  intellectual  culture  which 
had  been  formed  in  the  schools  of  philosophy,  particu- 
larly in  the  Platonic  school, came  into  contact 

with  Christianity.  The  first  author  still  extant,  in 
whom  this  character  may  be  discerned,  is  Justin  Mar- 
tyr. He  availed  himself,  in  his  speculations  (as  Philo, 
whose  ideas  seem  to  have  been  known  to  him  and  to 
have  influenced  him,  had  already  done),  of  the  ambigu- 
ity of  the  Greek  term  Logos,  which  denotes  both  reason 
and  word."  (p.  585.) 

Here  Neander  admits  that  the  doctrine  of  subordina- 
tion, that  is,  in  plain  English,  the  doctrine  of  the  inferi- 
ority of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  characterized  the  Church 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  both  in  the  East  and  the  West. 
This  is  confirmed  by  his  more  detailed  statements,  and 
by  all  the  passages  he  cites  from  the  Fathers.  Of  this 
fact  I  will  give  a  few  illustrations. 

In  regard  to  Justin,  who  flourished  A.  D.  140  or 
150,  I  will  quote,  for  brevity,  from  the  monograph  of 
Semisch  on  his  "  Life,  Writings,  and  Opinions,"  to 
which  Neander  refers  (p.  609,  note)  as  "  remarkably 


204  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

full  and  thorough,"  premising  that  Semisch  is  a  strong 
Trinitarian.     He  says  :  — 

"  The  sense  in  which  Justin  believed  that  the  Logos 
was  subordinate  to  the  Father,  is  twofold,  —  that  of 
complete  dependence,  and  of  a  quantitative  inequality  of 
being"  (Semisch's  Justin  Martyr,  II.  191,  Ry land's 
translation.) 

I  wish  I  had  space  to  cite  a  part  of  the  overwhelm- 
ing evidence  of  this  fact,  which  Semisch  produces  from 
the  writings  of  Justin.  I  cannot  do  this,  but  I  will 
quote  from  him  a  sentence  or  two,  on  another  impor- 
tant point.  He  says  :  — 

"  Justin  considers  the  divine  in  Jesus  as  originally  a 
pure  property  [or  mere  attribute],  and  subsequently  a 
hypostasized  power  of  Reason  of  God  ;  accordingly  he 
ascribes  eternity  to  the  Logos  as  a  property,  but  not  as 
a  person.  As  long  as  the  Logos  rested  in  God,  it  was 
essentially  identical  with  his  substance,  or  rather  stood 
in  the  relation  of  a  part  to  the  whole ;  by  coming  forth 
from  the  divine  essence,  it  first  attained  a  personal  self- 
subsistence.  Justin  entertained  the  opinion  which  is  so 
briefly  expressed  by  Tertullian  :  fuit  tempus  cum  filius 
non  fuit  [i.  e.  "  there  was  a  time  when  the  Son  was 
not"],  and  supposed  that  the  creation  of  the  world 
was  the  epoch  when  the  Logos  came  forth  from  God." 
(Ibid.,  p.  181.) 

"  We  find  in  the  other  apologetic  writers,"  namely, 
Tatian,  Athenagoras,  and  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  as 
Neander  remarks,  "  the  same  fundamental  view "  as 
in  Justin ;  and  he  notices  in  the  case  of  Athenagoras, 
that 

"  He  is  led  to  express  himself  on  the  unity  of  the 
divine  essence,  in  a  way  which  strikes  a  middle  course 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  205 

between  the  Monarchian  theory  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church  in  its  later  and  more  matured  form.  It  is  easy 
to  see  how  the  above-named  Monarchians  might  avail 
themselves  of  the  authority  of  such  passages,  to  main- 
tain the  higher  antiquity  of  their  own  form  of  doctrine." 
(p.  586.) 

"  Thus  unfolded,"  Neander  goes  on  to  observe,  "  this 
doctrine  passed  over  into  the  Alexandrian  school."  — 
"  The  Alexandrian  system,  which  sprang  out  of  the 
germ  furnished  by  Clement,  was  first  carried  out  and 
moulded  into  its  perfect  shape  by  Origen ;  —  and  the 
influence  of  his  exposition  of  the  doctrine  continued 
long  to  be  felt  in  the  Eastern  Church."  (pp.  586,  587.) 
In  opposition  to  the  notion  which  had  been  prevalent 
"  of  an  emanation  of  the  Logos  to  self-subsistent  exist- 
ence before  the  creation  of  the  world,"  Origen  main- 
tained his  eternal,  or  rather  timeless  generation.  This 
was  demanded  by  his  philosophy.  "  He,"  as  Neander 
remarks,  "  who  fixed  no  beginning  to  the  creation,  but 
supposed  it  to  be  eternal,  would  far  less  fix  any  begin- 
ning here."  (p.  588.) 

But  Origen  never  dreamed  of  making  the  Logos 
equal  with  the  Father.  As  Neander  observes  :  — 

"  It  appeared  to  him  something  like  a  profanation  of 
the  first  and  supreme  essence,  to  suppose  an  equality  of 
essence  or  a  unity  between  Him  and  any  other  being 
whatever,  not  excepting  even  the  Son  of  God.  As  the 
Son  of  God  and  the  Holy  Spirit  are  incomparably  ex- 
alted above  all  other  existences,  even  in  the  highest 
ranks  of  the  spiritual  world,  so  high  and  yet  higher  is 
the  Father  exalted  even  above  them"  (In  Joann.  T. 
XIII.  c.  25.  Opp.  IV.  235.) 

"  From  this  doctrine  he  drew  the  practical  inference, 
that  we  are  bound  to  pray  to  the  Father  alone,  and  not 
to  the  Son."  (p.  590.) 


206  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

I  pass  over  the  account  which  Neander  gives  (pp. 
591  -  605)  of  the  opinions  of  Beryllus,  Sabellius,  and 
Paul  of  Samosata,  all  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  yet  having  many  adherents.  We  will  glance 
at  the  development  of  the  doctrine  in  the  Western 
Church,  as  represented  by  Tertullian.  Neander  re- 
marks (p.  605)  :  — 

"  He  could  quite  clearly  conceive,  by  the  aid  of  his 
material  notions  of  emanation,  how  the  Godhead  might 
cause  to  proceed  from  its  own  essence  a  being  possessed 
of  the  same  substance,  only  in  an  inferior  degree,  and 
standing  in  the  same  relation  to  the  former  as  a  ray  of 
light  to  the  sun.  He  asserted,  therefore,  the  doctrine 
of  one  divine  Essence,  shared  in  a  certain  gradation  by 
three  persons,  most  intimately  connected. 

"  The  Son,  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  divine  essence, 
is  not  numerically  distinct  from  the  Father ;  the  same 
essence  of  God  being  also  in  the  Son  ;  but  he  differs  in 
degree,  being  a  smaller  portion  of  the  common  mass  of 
the  divine  essence.  Thus  the  prevailing  view  in  the 
Western  Church  came  to  be  this :  one  divine  essence 
in  the  Father  and  Son ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  a  sub- 
ordination in  the  relation  of  the  Son  to  the  Father." 
(p.  605.) 

Neander  proceeds  to  mention  the  fact,  that  the 
Council  of  Antioch,  A.  D.  269,  condemned  the  famous 
expression  homoousios,  "  consubstantial,"  which  was 
made  the  test  of  orthodoxy  at  the  Council  of  Nice, 
A.  D.  325.  He  then  gives  an  account  of  a  friendly 
discussion,  remarkably  free  from  personalities,  between 
Dionysius,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  and  Dionysius,  Bishop 
of  Rome.  The  former,  as  Neander  remarks, 

"  Made  use  of  several  expressions  which  Arianism 
could  afterwards  fall  back  upon.  He  made  it  a  prom- 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  207 

inent  point  that  the  Son  of  God  had  his  existence  by 
the  will  of  the  Father ;  he  styled  the  Son,  in  relation 
to  the  latter,  a  noirjpa,  ft.  e.  "  work,"  "  creature,"]  and 
employed  many  singular  comparisons  with  a  view  to 
mark  his  subordinate  relation  to  the  Father."  (p. 
606.) 

The  views  of  Dionysius  of  Rome  were  somewhat 
nearer  to  the  orthodoxy  of  later  times.  There  is  noth- 
ing, however,  in  what  remains  to  us  of  his  writings, 
which  approaches  the  doctrine  of  a  Trinity  of  coequal 
persons.  On  the  contrary,  as  Neander  admits  (p.  607, 
note),  he  clearly  recognizes  the  subordination  of  the 
Son,  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Father,  as  "  the  Head 
of  the  divine  Triad,  the  Almighty  God  of  the  Uni- 
verse." 

Neander  goes  on  to  remark :  — 

"In  the  doctrine  concerning  the  Holy  Spirit,  the 
want  of  correspondence  between  what  was  contained 
in  the  Christian  consciousness  and  its  notional  expres- 
sion clearly  manifested  itself.  In  the  first  youthful 
age  of  the  Church,  when  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
made  itself  to  be  so  mightily  felt  in  the  life,  as  a  new 
creative,  transforming  principle,  it  was  still  very  far 
from  being  the  case  that  the  consciousness  of  this 
Spirit,  as  one  identical  with  the  essence  of  God,  had 
been  thoroughly  apprehended  and  presented  in  con- 
ceptions of  the  understanding. 

"  If  we  except  the  Monarchians  and  Lactantius,  men 
were  agreed  in  conceiving  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  per- 
sonal being But  the  logical  consistency  of  their 

system  of  subordination  in  the  Logos-doctrine,  com- 
pelled the  Church  Fathers  to  conceive  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
as  subordinate  to  the  Father  and  the  Son  ;  the  first  of 
the  beings  produced  by  the  Father  through  the  Son  ;  — 
and  we  shall  perceive  the  after  influence  of  this  ten- 


208  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

dencj  of  thought  in  the  Eastern  Church  till  late  into 
the  fourth  century."  "  In  Justin  Martyr,  particularly, 
we  may  observe  a  wavering  between  the  idea  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  as  one  of  the  members  of  the  Triad,  and 
a  spirit  standing  in  some  relationship  with  the  angels." 
"  In  Origen  we  observe  two  elements  coming  together, 
the  sound  Christian  view,  producing  itself  out  of  the 
immediate  contents  of  the  Christian  consciousness,  and 
the  speculative  view,  standing  in  no  sort  of  relation  to 
it.  On  the  one  hand,  he  considers  the  Holy  Spirit  as 
the  substance  of  all  the  gracious  gifts  proceeding  from 
God,  communicated  through  Christ,  the  source  of  sanc- 
tification  to  believers ;  and  then  he  describes  him,  not- 
withstanding, as  only  the  first-begotten  of  the  Father 
through  the  Son,  to  whom  not  only  being,  but  also 
wisdom  and  holiness,  is  first  communicated  by  the  Son, 
dependent  on  him  in  all  these  relations. 

"  It  is  besides  worthy  of  notice,  that,  in  the  dispute 
with'the  Monarchians,  the  doctrine  concerning  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  not  touched  upon  at  all,  —  a  proof  how  little 
men  had  busied  themselves,  as  yet,  with  the  more  accu- 
rate determination  of  this  doctrine."  (pp.  608-610.) 

Such  is  an  outline  of  the  account  which  Neander 
gives  of  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
in  the  first  three  centuries.  He  mentions  not  a  single 
writer,  however  eccentric,  within  that  period,  to  whom 
he  ascribes  the  doctrine  of  "  a  Trinity  of  coequal  per- 
sons." How  remote  from  that  doctrine  are  the  opinions 
which  he  does  describe  as  prevalent,  every  reader  must 
have  perceived.  What,  then,  are  we  to  think  of  the 
assertion  of  Dr.  Huntington,  quoted  near  the  beginning 
of  this  article  ?  Did  he  understand  the  passage  of  Ne- 
ander to  which  he  refers  ? 

We  have  no  space  left  for  a  sketch  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  fourth  century, 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  209 

the  age  of  the  Arian  controversy.  In  the  early  part  of 
this  century  Christianity  became  the  religion  of  the 
state;  a  new  and  most  potent  cause,  in  addition  to 
others  which  were  before  in  operation,  of  its  rapid 
debasement  and  corruption.  It  was  towards  the  end 
of  this  century,  that,  after  most  violent  struggles,  during 

which 

"  Long  time  in  even  scale 
The  battle  hung," 

something  like  the  present  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was 
first  embodied  in  a  creed,  and  established  as  orthodox 
by  the  irresistible  authority  of  the  Emperor  Theo- 
dosius.  E.  A. 


vn. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE    TRINITY  IN  THE  FOURTH 
CENTURY. 

MR.  EDITOR  :  —  In  the  Register  of  last  week  I  stated 
and  illustrated  the  fact,  that  the  doctrine  of  "  a  Trin- 
ity of  coequal  persons,"  which  Dr.  Huntington  calls  "the 
sublime  working-scheme  of  Revelation  and  Redemption  " 
(Christian  Believing,  &c.,  p.  364),  was  unknown  to  the 
Christian  Church  of  the  first  three  centuries.  The  sim- 
plicity of  the  primitive  faith  had  certainly  become  cor- 
rupted; but  that  conception,  so  far  as  appears,  had 
never  entered  the  mind  of  even  a  single  individual  who 
flourished  in  this  period.  For  the  proof  of  this  fact  I 
confined  myself  almost  wholly  to  the  Church  History  of 
14 


210  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

the  Trinitarian  Neander,  to  which  Dr.  Huntington  had 
appealed.  But  it  may  be  well  to  remark  that  other 
Trinitarian  scholars  of  the  highest  eminence,  as  Peta- 
vius,  Huet,  Beausobre,  and  Cudworth,  admit  that  the 
inferiority  of  the  Son  to  the  Father  was  the  common 
doctrine  of  the  Christian  writers  who  preceded  the  Coun- 
cil of  Nice. 

Taking  Neander  again  as  a  guide,  I  now  propose  to 
notice,  as  briefly  as  possible,  the  development  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  fourth  century.  I  shall 
enter  but  little  into  detail.  The  subject  will  be  found 
treated  in  Neander's  Church  History,  Vol.  II.  pp.  360- 
420  of  Torrey's  translation. 

The  famous  Council  of  Nice  was  convoked  by  the 
Emperor  Constantine,  A.  D.  325,  for  the  purpose,  in 
part,  of  settling  the  dispute  between  Alexander,  Bishop 
of  Alexandria,  and  his  presbyter,  Arius.  The  point  at 
issue  was  this,  —  Whether  the  Son  was  begotten  from 
eternity,  of  the  same  substance  with  the  Father,  or 
whether  he  was  created  out  of  nothing.  The  majority 
of  the  Council,  as  Neander  states  (pp.  372,  373),  occu- 
pied a  middle  ground  between  the  parties,  entertaining 
views  similar  to  those  of  Eusebius  of  Csesarea,  being 
ready  to  declare  the  Son  to  be  of  like  substance  with  the 
Father,  exalted  above  all  other  beings,  but  objecting  to 
the  term  homoousios,  "  consubstantial,"  which  had  been 
rejected  by  an  earlier  Council.  The* Emperor,  how- 
ever, under  the  influence  of  Hosius  and  his  associates, 
decided  in  favor  of  this  term,  and  his  will  was  law.  His 
decision  was  the  more  readily  submitted  to,  as  the  word 
in  question  admitted  of  different  interpretations.  But 
as  Neander  justly  remarks :  — 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  211 

"  The  manner  in  which  the  controversies  had  been 
decided  by  the  Council  of  Nice  could  only  contain  the 
seeds  for  new  disputes ;  for  there  was  here  no  cordial 
union  springing  freely,  by  a  natural  course  of  develop- 
ment, out  of  inward  conviction :  but  a  forced  and  artifi- 
cial union  of  men,  still  widely  separated  by  their  differ- 
ent modes  of  thinking,  on  a  creed  which  had  been  imposed 
on  them,  and  which  was  differently  expounded  according 
to  the  different  doctrinal  interests  of  the  several  parties. 
Thus  it  happened,  that  while  for  the  present  no  party 
ventured  as  yet  to  come  out  decidedly  against  the  Ho- 
moousion  '[sameness  of  substance],  still  those  who  had 
received  it,  explaining  it  to  mean  Homoiousion  [likeness 
of  substance],  accused  the  others,  who  interpreted  it  and 
held  it  fast  in  its  proper  and  original  signification,  of 
Sabellianism ;  while  the  latter  accused  the  former  of 
Tritheism."  "  Yet  the  major  part  of  the  Eastern  Church 
would  naturally  strive  to  rid  themselves  of  the  imposed 
articles  of  the  Nicene  Creed."  (p.  378.) 

I  pass  over  the  melancholy  history  of  the  contests  be- 
tween the  Arians  and  their  opponents  for  fifty  years 
after  the  Council  of  Nice.  In  the  year  328  Arius  was 
recalled  from  banishment,  and  restored  to  favor  with 
the  Emperor.  Athanasius  was  forced  to  spend  twenty 
of  the  forty-six  years  of  his  bishopric  in  exile  or  conceal- 
ment. Numerous  and  influential  councils  favored  Arian 
or  Eusebian  opinions ;  and  during  far  the  greater  part 
of  the  period  to  which  I  refer,  these  opinions  were  pre- 
dominant in  the  Eastern  Church,  while  the  Nicene  doc- 
trine, on  the  other  hand,  had  the  ascendency  in  the 
West.  But  the  most  important  fact  to  be  attended  to 
is,  that  even  the  Nicene  Creed  is  not  Trinitarian.  As 
Professor  Stuart  remarks :  — 

"  It  presents  the  Father  as  the  Monas,  the  Divinity  or 
proper  Godhead  in  and  of  himself  exclusively ;  it  repre- 


212  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

sents  him  as  the  Fans  et  Principium  of  the  Son,  and 
therefore  gives  him  superior  power  and  glory.  It  does 
not  even  assert  the  claims  of  the  Blessed  Spirit  to 
Godhead :  and  therefore  leaves  room  to  doubt  whether 
it  means  to  recognize  a  Trinity  or  only  a  Duality." 
(Biblical  Repository  for  April,  1835,  Vol.  V.  p.  317.) 

This  leads  me  to  quote,  in  further  illustration  of  the 
gradual  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the 
following  remarks  of  Neander  :  — 

"It  must  excite  surprise  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  only  adverted  to  in  very  general  terms 
in  the  Nicene  Creed.  Why  was  the  Homoousian  doc- 
trine not  applied  to  it?  It  has  been  alleged  that  at 
that  time  there  was  no  controversy  respecting  it.  But 
this  ground  is  not  correct;  for  it  is  evident  from  the 
express  statement  of  Athanasius,  that  Arius  applied 
the  doctrine  of  subordination  to  the  Holy  Spirit ;  he 
placed  the  same  distance  between  the  Son  and  the 
Spirit  as  between  the  Father  and  the  Son.  According 
to  him,  the  Holy  Spirit  was  only  the  first  of  created 
beings,  brought  into  existence  by  the  Son  as  the  organ 
of  the  Father.  Or  should  we  be  justified  in  saying 
that  attention  had  not  been  sufficiently  directed  to  this 
point?  that  it  was  not  held  to  be  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance ?  The  true  reason  rather  consists  in  this,  that  the 
Oriental  Church  was  at  that  time  much  less  fitted  to  ad- 
mit the  Homoousia  [consubstantiality]  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
as  part  of  its  doctrine,  and  if  it  had  been  urged,  its  op- 
position against  the  Homoousion  would  have  been  still 
greater But  even  as  late  as  A.  D.  380,  great  in- 
distinctness prevailed  among  different  parties  respecting 
this  dogma,  so  that  even  GREGORY  NAZIANZEN  could 
say,  '  Some  of  our  theologians  regard  the  Spirit  simply 
as  a  mode  of  divine  operation,  others  as  a  creature  of 
God,  others  as  God  himself;  others,  again,  say  that 
they  know  not  which  of  these  opinions  to  accept,  from 
their  reverence  for  Holy  Writ,  which  says  nothing 


CHRISTIAN    REGISTER.  213 

upon  it.'  HILARY  of  Poictiers,  a  Nicene  theologian, 
acknowledges  that  the  Holy  Ghost  exists,  and  that 
faith  in  him  is  necessarily  connected  with  confessing 
the  Father  and  the  Son,  and  to  know  this  is  sufficient. 
If  any  one  ask  what  the  Holy  Spirit  is,  and  is  not  sat- 
isfied that  he  is  through  Him  and  from  Him  through 
whom  are  all  things  ;  that  he  is  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
his  gift  to  believers,  even  Apostles  and  Prophets  will 
not  satisfy  such  a  person,  for  they  only  assert  this  of 
him,  that  he  is.  He  does  not  venture  to  attribute  to 
him  the  name  God,  because  the  Scripture  does  not  so 
call  him  expressly,  yet  [as]  it  says,  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
searcheth  the  deep  things  of  God,  it  follows  that  he 
partakes  of  the  divine  essence.  Though  BASIL  of 
Caesarea  [fl.  A.  D.  370]  wished  to  teach  the  divinity 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  his  church,  he  only  ventured  to 
introduce  it  gradually.  The  subject  was  brought  more 
distinctly  under  discussion,  when  many  of  the  Homoiou- 
sians  showed  themselves  ready  to  adopt  the  Nicene 
doctrine,  but  could  not  make  up  their  minds  to  extend 
the  Homoousion  to  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  order  to  re- 
move their  objections,  Athanasius,  who  from  the  first 
had  been  consequential  on  this  dogma,  composed  his 
letter  to  Serapion,  Bishop  of  Thmuis."  (Neander's 
Hist,  of  Christian  Dogmas,  I.  303  -  305  ;  compare  his 
Church  History,  II.  418  -  423.) 

The  merits  of  Athanasius  in  discovering  and  estab- 
lishing the  Trinitarian  doctrine  respecting  the  Holy 
Spirit  are  stated  in  a  striking  manner  by  Gregory 
Nazianzen.  I  will  quote  a  short,  but  important  pas- 
sage from  his  Eulogy  on  this  great  champion  of  Ortho- 
doxy. He  says  of  Athanasius :  — 

"  When  all  others  who  held  our  doctrine  were  di- 
vided into  three  classes,  the  faith  of  many  being  un- 
sound respecting  the  Son,  that  of  still  more  concerning 
the  Holy  Spirit  (on  which  subject  to  be  least  impious 


214  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

was  thought  to  be  piety),  and  a  small  number  being 
sound  in  both  respects ;  he  first  and  alone,  or  with  a 
very  few,  had  the  courage  to  profess  in  writing,  clearly 
and  explicitly,  the  true  doctrine  of  the  one  Godhead 
and  nature  of  the  three  persons.  Thus  that  truth,  a 
knowledge  of  which,  as  far  as  regards  the  Son,  had 
been  vouchsafed  to  most  of  the  Fathers  before,  he 
was  fully  inspired  to  maintain  in  respect  to  the  Holy 
Spirit."  ( Or  at.  XXI.  c.  34.  Opp.  I.  408,  as  translated 
by  Mr.  Norton,  Statement  of  Reasons,  3d  ed.,  pp. 
43,  44.) 

The  statements  which  have  thus  far  been  made  re- 
specting the  history  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
are  all,  as  the  reader  will  observe,  concessions  of  Trini- 
tarian writers.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  they 
present  a  full  view  of  the  evidence  that  the  proper 
Trinitarian  doctrine  on  this  subject  was  unknown  in  the 
early  ages  of  the  Christian  Church.  They  are,  how- 
ever, amply  sufficient  for  my  purpose.  But  I  wish  to 
just  notice  a  single  other  point,  suggested  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  Dr.  Huntington  closes  his  sermon  on  the 
Trinity,  in  his  "  Christian  Believing,"  &c.,  p.  412,  and 
his  sermon  on  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  in  his  "  Sermons 
for  the  People,"  p.  270.  An  ascription  of  glory  or  praise 
to  two  or  three  beings  in  connection  does  not  prove  that 
the  person  who  makes  it  regards  them  as  equal,  much 
less  that  he  believes  in  their  deity.  But  considering 
the  facts  admitted  by  Neander  and  Gregory  Nazianzen, 
it  may  be  suspected  that  there  is  some  foundation  for 
the  explicit  statement  of  the  ecclesiastical  historian 
Philostorgius,  (fl.  A.  D.  425,)  though  an  Arian,  that 

"  Flavian  of  Antioch  [who  flourished  A.  D.  381] 
was  the  first  who,  having  collected  together  a  large 


CHRISTIAN    REGISTER.  215 

band  of  monks,  shouted  aloud  the  doxology,  f  Glory 
be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy 
Spirit.'  For  among  those  who  preceded  him,  some 
had  been  accustomed  to  say,  i  Glory  be  to  the  Father, 
through  the  Son,  in  the  Holy  Spirit,'  and  this  latter 
form  of  doxology  was  the  one  generally  received  ; 
while  others  again  used  a  different  form,  saying,  '  Glory 
be  to  the  Father,  in  the  Son,  and  in  the  Holy  Spirit.' " 
(Hist.  Eccles.  III.  13.) 

An  Illyrian  council  held  in  the  year  375,  as  Neander 
remarks  (Church  History,  II.  420,  note  3),  "was  the 
first  to  extend  the  homoousion  [consubstantiality]  to 
the  doctrine  concerning  the  Holy  Spirit."  The  Coun- 
cil of  Constantinople,  the  second  general  council,  sum- 
moned by  the  Emperor  Theodosius,  A.  D.  381,  supplied 
the  deficiency  in  the  Nicene  Creed,  which  simply  says, 
"  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Spirit,"  by  adding  the  words, 
"  the  Lord,  the  Giver  of  Life,  who  proceeds  from  the 
Father,  who  together  with  the  Father  and  the  Son  is 
worshipped  and  glorified,  who  spoke  by  the  prophets." 
It  may  be  worth  while  to  note,  though  unimportant  for 
the  present  purpose,  that  the  expressions  "the  Lord, 
the  giver  of  life,"  are  founded  on  a  misunderstanding 
of  2  Cor.  iii.  17  and  John  vi.  63. 

Something  like  the  present  orthodox  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  was  now  established,  and  its  reception  was 
enforced  with  unrelenting  severity  by  the  imperial 
power.  I  say  something  like  it ;  for  the  Nicene  creed, 
as  enlarged  at  Constantinople,  does  not  expressly  teach 
the  equality  of  the  three  persons,  or  their  numerical 
unity.  This  development  of  the  doctrine  was,  however, 
soon  attained.  As  Gieseler  remarks  :  — 

"  The  unity  and  equality  of  the  persons,  which  neces- 


216  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

sarily  resulted  from  holding  sameness  of  essence,  was 
not  fully  acknowledged  at  once  even  by  the  Nicenians, 
but  continued  [came]  to  be  more  clearly  perceived, 
until  at  last  it  was  expressed  by  Augustine  for  the  first 
time  with  decided  logical  consequence."  (Church  His- 
tory, 4th  ed.,  §  83  ;  Vol.  I.  p.  313  of  Davidson's  trans- 
lation, Amer.  edition.) 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  essentially  in  the  form 
in  which  it  was  established  in  the  Latin  Church  by  the 
powerful  influence  of  Augustine,  is  embodied  in  that 
remarkable  document  which  has  been  known  by  the 
name  of  "  the  Athanasian  creed,"  or  the  "  Symbolum 
Quicunque"  from  the  word  with  which  it  commences. 
When  or  by  whom  this  creed  was  composed,  nobody 
knows  ;  but  an  earlier  date  cannot  possibly  be  assigned 
to  it  than  the  latter  part  of  the  fifth  century.  It  was 
undoubtedly  originally  written  in  Latin,  not  in  Greek. 
Neander  conjectures  that  Vigilius  of  Tapsus,  in  North 
Africa,  a  noted  literary  forger,  was  the  author.  It  be- 
gins by  informing  the  reader,  that  unless  he  receives  the 
doctrine  therein  contained,  and  keeps  it  whole  and  unde- 
filed,  "  without  doubt  he  shall  perish  everlastingly." 

The  doctrine  of  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
"from  the  Father  and  the  Son"  was  first  publicly 
sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  the  Council  of  Toledo, 
A.  D.  589.  It  has  never  been  received  by  the  Greek 
Church. 

The  present  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  —  that 
of  the  Westminster  Confession  and  of  the  Protestant 
creeds  generally  —  has  undoubtedly  been  prevalent  in 
the  Roman  Church  since  the  time  of  Augustine.  But, 
as  Cudworth  remarks,  it  "seemeth  not  to  have  been 
owned  by  any  public  authority  in  the  Christian  Church 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  217 

save  that  of  the  Lateran  Council  only."  (Intellectual 
System,  I.  793,  Andover  ed.)  He  refers  to  the  fourth 
general  Lateran  council,  held  in  1215,  under  Pope  In- 
nocent III.  This  council,  at  the  same  time,  established 
likewise  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation. 

If  the  account  which  Neander  gives  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  in  the  first  four  centuries  is  correct,  the 
careful  reader  will  perceive  that  the  main  argument  of 
Dr.  Huntington's  sermon  falls  at  once  to  the  ground. 
Much  more  might  be  said  to  show  the  falsity  of  the 
assumptions  on  which  that  argument  is  founded ;  but 
nothing  more  can  be  needed. 

E.  A. 


VIIL 

FURTHER  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  NEANDER'S  VIEWS,  AND 
OF  DR.  HUNTIXGTON'S  QUOTATIONS,  WITH  A  PRAC- 
TICAL IMPROVEMENT  OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

MR.  EDITOR  :  —  With  regard  to  Neander,  it  will  be 
remembered  that  the  points  on  which  I  have  insisted 
are  these :  —  1.  That  he  makes  a  broad  distinction 
between  what  he  calls  "  the  practical  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,"  and  "  the  speculative  or  ontological"  regard- 
ing the  former  alone  as  "  the  basis  of  the  true  unity 
of  the  Church,"  and,  in  fact,  universally  received  by 
Christians.  2.  That  his  "  practical  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,"  as  he  explains  it,  is  purely  Unitarian. 

Dr.  Huntington,  in  his  letter  published  in  the  Regis- 
ter of  Feb.  4,  cites  Neander  as  follows  :  — 


218  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

"  He  not  only  affirms  that  '  the  essence  of  all  Christi- 
anity is  contained  in  it,'  but  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  ( the  perfect  development  of  the  doctrine 
about  Christ ; '  and  '  that  it  is  rooted  in  the  centre- 
point  of  Christianity?  "  (The  Italics  are  his.) 

Dr.  Huntington  did  not  inform  his  readers  where 
the  passages  thus  quoted  from  Neander  were  to  be 
found.  They  are  taken  from  the  first  edition  of  the  first 
volume  of  his  Church  History,  as  translated  by  Rose, 
which  was  published  in  London  in  1841,  and  reprinted 
in  Philadelphia  in  1843.  In  the  greatly  enlarged  sec- 
ond edition,  translated  by  Torrey,  the  corresponding 
paragraph  (I.  571  -  573)  is  entirely  rewritten.  The 
larger  part  of  this  was  given  in  the  Register  of  Jan. 
21.  I  do  not  object  to  Dr.  Huntington's  quoting  from 
the  first  edition  rather  than  the  second,  as  Neander's 
views  on  the  matter  in  question  are  essentially  the 
same  in  both ;  but  it  would  have  been  a  convenience 
to  some  of  his  readers  to  have  been  notified  of  the  fact, 
that  part  of  his  citations  from  this  volume  of  Neander's 
History  were  from  one  edition,  and  part  from  another. 

In  the  article  published  in  the  Register  of  Feb.  11, 
I  simply  remarked  that  these  quotations  by  Dr.  Hun- 
tington did  not  in  the  slightest  degree  invalidate  any 
statement  I  had  made.  I  now  propose  to  confirm  this 
assertion  by  quoting  the  whole  paragraph  from  which 
they  were  taken.  I  do  so  for  two  reasons ;  first,  be- 
cause the  sentiments  therein  expressed  by  Neander 
are  so  excellent  in  themselves,  and  so  important  in 
their  practical  bearings  ;  and  secondly,  because  it  may 
be  satisfactory  to  your  readers  to  see  the  somewhat 
fragmentary  quotations  of  Dr.  Huntington  in  situ,  as 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  219 

the  geologists  say.  I  will  only  add,  that  I  believe 
Rose's  translation  to  be  substantially  correct,  though 
the  meaning  might  sometimes  be  more  clearly  brought 
out  by  a  change  of  expression.  I  have  accordingly 
substituted  "  contents  "  for  "  import,"  as  the  rendering 
of  Inhalt,  and  have  suggested  a  few  other  slight  changes 
in  brackets. 

The  following  is  the  paragraph  in  question :  — 

"The  peculiar  nature  [essence]  of  Christianity  re- 
veals itself  in  the  recognition  and  worship  of  God, 
not  merely  as  the  Creator,  but  also  as  the  Redeemer 
and  Sanctifier  of  human  nature,  in  the  belief  that  God, 
who  has  created  human  nature  pure,  has  redeemed  it 
when  it  became  estranged  from  him  by  sin,  and  con- 
tinues [will  continue]  to  sanctify  it,  until  it  shall  have 
attained  in  an  eternal  life  to  an  untroubled  and  beatified 
communion  with  him  in  perfect  holiness.  Without  this 
faith  and  knowledge,  there  is  no  lively  worship  of  God, 
no  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  because  a 
lively  worship  of  God  cannot  exist  without  communion 
with  him,  and  because  this  communion  cannot  be  shared 
by  man,  as  long  as  he  is  estranged  from  God  by  sin  ; 
as  long  as  that  which  separates  him  from  God  is  not 
removed ;  and  because  the  worship  of  God  in  spirit 
and  in  truth  can  only  proceed  from  a  soul  which  has 
been  sanctified  so  as  to  become  a  temple  of  God.  This 
doctrine  of  God,  the  Creator,  the  Redeemer,  and  the 
Sanctifier  of  'human  nature,  is  the  essential  contents  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  therefore,  since  [since 
therefore]  in  this  latter  doctrine  the  essence  of  all 
Christianity  is  contained,  it  could  not  but  happen,  that 
as  this  doctrine  proceeded  out  of  [when  this  doctrine 
came  forth  from]  the  depths  of  Christian  consciousness, 
it  should  be  considered  as  the  chief  doctrine  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  that  even  in  the  earliest  Church  the  essential 
contents  of  the  faith  should  be  annexed  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  This  doc- 


220  COMMUNICATIONS   TO   THE 

trine  again  is  nothing  else  than  the  doctrine  of  God, 
who  has  revealed  and  imparted  himself  to  sinful  man  in 
Christ ;  everything  here  reverts  to  the  doctrine  of  God's 
being  in  Christ,  for  the  working  of  God  in  human 
nature  redeemed  by  him,  presupposes  the  inward  rela- 
tion, into  which  God  has  entered  with  human  nature 
through  Christ,  and  all  is  here  only  the  continuation 
and  consequence  of  that  relation ;  and  therefore  this 
doctrine  [i.  e.  of  God  the  Creator,  Redeemer,  and  Sanc- 
tifier  of  human  nature],  is  nothing  else  but  the  perfect 
development  of  the  doctrine  about  Christ,  which  the 
Apostle  Paul,  1  Corinthians  iii.  calls  the  foundation  of 
all  Christianity,  the  development  of  that  which  Christ 
himself  designates  as  the  essential  contents  of  his  doc- 
trine :  '  This  is  eternal  life,  that  they  should  know  thee, 
that  thou  alone  art  the  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ-whom 
thou  hast  sent.'  But  the  speculative  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  carefully  to  be  distinguished  from  this  its 
essential  Christian  contents,  and  men  might  agree  in 
the  latter,  and  yet  differ  from  each  other  in  their  con- 
ceptions of  the  former.  The  former  only  set  itself  up 
as  a  human  attempt  to  bring  into  just  harmony  with  the 
unity  of  the  Divine  Being,  the  existence  of  God  in 
Christ,  and  through  Christ  in  the  faithful,  as  it  is  repre- 
sented in  Holy  Scripture,  and  out  of  that  Scripture 
formed  an  image  of  itself  in  the  inward  life  and  the 
inward  perceptions  of  the  faithful.  But  it  was  an  evil 
that,  in  this  attempt,  men  did  not  rightly  divide  the 
speculative  and  dialectic  element  from  that  essential 
and  practical  foundation  ;  the  consequence  of  which 
was,  that  men  transplanted  that  doctrine  from  its  proper 
practical  ground  in  which  it  is  rooted  in  the  centre 
point  of  Christianity,  into  a  speculative  region  foreign 
to  it,  which  might  give  an  opportunity  of  mingling  with 
it  much  extraneous  matter,  and  again  might  lead  to 
setting  Christianity,  contrary  to  its  peculiar  character, 
on  a  speculative  instead  of  a  practical  foundation ;  and 
the  consequence  of  this  again  was,  that  men,  overpriz- 
ing the  importance  of  speculative  differences,  tore  asun- 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  221 

der  the  bond  of  Christian  communion,  where  there  was 
yet  an  agreement  in  what  is  practical  and  essential ;  and 
on  the  other  hand,  that  men  stinted  the  free  development 
of  the  Christian  doctrine,  by  the  attempt  to  attain  a 
uniformity  of  speculative  conceptions."  (Neander's 
Hist,  of  the  Christian  Church,  (1st  ed.)  Rose's  trans- 
lation, p.  368  of  the  Amer.  ed.,  corresponding  to  pp. 
986  -  988  of  the  original.) 

I  need  not  remark  how  completely  this  passage  agrees 
with  all  I  have  stated  as  to  the  views  of  Neander.  Its 
dangerous  tendency  was  perceived  by  the  translator, 
who  thought  it  necessary  to  give  a  warning  to  the  read- 
er in  the  following  curious  note :  — 

"  We  must  also  be  careful  that  in  endeavoring  to  rec- 
oncile contending  views  we  do  not  depart  from  the  great 
truth  which  is  contained  in  the  Athanasian  Creed,  that 
each  person  is  acknowledged  '  by  himself  to  be  both  God 
and  Lord,  and  yet  that  no  one  should  for  a  moment  be- 
lieve that  there  be  three  Gods  or  three  Lords/  We 
must  take  care  that  we  do  not  explain  the  Divinity  of 
the  Son  as  the  mere  indwelling  of  the  Father  in  Jesus 
Christ ;  or  believe  that  the  Son  is  the  mere  manifesta-' 
tion  of  the  Father;  or  we  shall  fall  into  Sabellianism 
or  Patripassianism  at  once.  The  evil  which  Neander 
wishes  to  obviate,  seems  to  be  the  attempt  to  explain 
this  great  truth  speculatively,  and  creating  differences  in 
consequence  of  such  attempts.  [?]  However  wrong  such 
attempts  may  be,  in  opposing  them  we  must  still  be  care- 
ful to  maintain  that  great  Catholic  truth,  the  Trinity  in 
Unity,  and  the  Unity  in  Trinity,  which  is  founded  on  the 
Scriptures,  and  must  be  received  by  faith,  though  our 
finite  faculties  are  unable  to  explain  its  mysteries. — 
H.  J.  R." 

In  the  Register  of  Feb.  4,  Dr.  Huntington  explains  the 
misquotation  of  Neander,  in  his  sermon  on  the  Trinity, 
by  saying  that 


222  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE 

"  The  quotation  was  transferred  from  an  article  by  a 
theological  writer,  whose  accuracy  I  had  no  reason  to 
question,  and  whose  honesty  is  above  suspicion,  where 
many  of  the  readers  of  the  l  Register '  must  have  seen 
it." 

In  justice  to  the  eminent  writer  of  the  article  referred 
to,  it  should  be  stated  that  he  is  responsible  for  only  one 
of  the  mistakes  made  by  Dr.  Huntington  in  quoting  this 
unlucky  passage.  His  language  was  this :  — 

"  Neander  calls  it  [the  article  of  the  Trinity]  '  the 
fundamental  article  of  the  Christian  faith ;  and  we  rec- 
ognize therein/  he  says, '  the  essential  contents  of  Chris- 
tianity summed  up  in  brief.' " 

Dr.  Huntington  (p.  378),  not  observing  that  the  words 
"  and  we  recognize  therein  "  were  essential  to  a  true  rep- 
resentation of  Neander's  meaning,  omitted  them,  making 
Neander  assert  that  the  article  of  the  Trinity  "  is  the 
essential  contents  of  Christianity  summed  up  in  brief." 
.  Under  the  circumstances,  misled  as  he  was  as  to  Nean- 
der's view  by  his  friend's  misquotation  of  the  first  clause, 
this  inadvertence  was  very  natural  and  excusable.  But 
I  did  marvel  that  he  did  not  perceive  the  error  when  it 
was  distinctly  pointed  out. 

BUT  let  us  drop  these  comparatively  trivial  matters, 
and  turn  our  attention  to  the  practical  bearing  of  Nean- 
der's view  of  the  importance  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity, as  contrasted  with  that  of  Dr.  Huntington. 

If,  as  Dr.  Huntington  maintains  (pp.  355,  356),  the 
doctrine  of  "  a  Trinity  of  coequal  persons,"  each  of  whom 
is  to  be  worshipped  as  God,  is  "  the  fundamental  article 
of  Christian  belief,"  announced  by  our  Saviour  as  "  the 


CHRISTIAN   REGISTER.  223 

one  essential  characteristic  truth  of  his  religion,"  if  this 
constitutes  the  creed  which  he  gave  his  Church  at  the 
close  of  his  earthly  ministry,  it  necessarily  follows  that 
no  one  who  rejects  this  doctrine  is  entitled  to  the  name 
of  Christian.  Among  those  who  have  rejected  it,  there 
may  be,  indeed,  some  who  are  "  honorable  in  character  " 
(p.  361),  even  "devout,"  being  "exceptional  cases," 
"  indebted  after  all  to  hereditary  influences  which  they 
do  not  acknowledge  "  (p.  402)  ;  but  they  are  out  of  the 
pale  of  the  Christian  Church.  They  must  be  excluded 
from  Christian  fellowship.  Such  men  as  Newton  and 
Locke,  Clarke  and  Lardner,  Priestley  and  Price,  Cappe 
and  Carpenter,  Buckminster  and  Channing,  Worcester 
and  Tuckerman,  Freeman  and  Greenwood,  the  Wares 
and  the  Peabodys,  Norton  and  Nichols,  and  such  women 
as  Mrs.  Ware  and  Florence  Nightingale,  can  at  best  be 
regarded  only  as  religious  Deists. 

I  do  not  say  that  Dr.  Huntington  expressly  affirms 
this.  The  inference  may  be  logically  inevitable  from 
his  premises ;  but  it  would  be  very  unsafe  to  assume, 
on  that  account,  that  he  makes  it.  It  is  an  inference, 
however,  that  has  been  made  and  acted  upon  by  the 
great  body  of  Trinitarians. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  as  Neander  maintains, 
u  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  does  not  belong  to  the 
fundamental  articles  of  the  Christian  faith,"  being  ex- 
pressly taught  in  no  passage  of  the  New  Testament ; 
if  the  only  doctrine  which  the  Head  of  the  Church 
and  his  Apostles  pronounced  fundamental  is  cordially 
received  by  Unitarians ;  if,  in  fact,  their  faith  embraces 
the  essence  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  itself,  all  that 
gives  it  any  practical  value,  namely,  "  the  recognition 


224  COMMUNICATIONS    TO    THE   REGISTER. 

of  God  not  merely  as  the  Creator,  but  also  as  the  Re- 
deemer and  Sanctifier  of  humanity  ; "  then  Unitarians 
who  acknowledge  Jesus  as  their  Lord  are  not  infidels. 
It  is  the  plain  duty  of  all  Christians  to  welcome  them 
heartily  to  their  fellowship  as  brethren.  To  refuse  to 
do  this,  is,  as  Neander  expresses  it,  "  to  tear  asunder 
the  bond  of  Christian  communion,  where  there  is  yet 
an  agreement  in  what  is  practical  and  essential." 

And  it  is  more  than  this.  If  Jesus  Christ  and  his 
Apostles  have  required  for  admission  to  the  Church  no 
other  confession  of  faith  but  this,  that  Jesus  is  the 
Anointed  of  God  ;  if,  in  other  words,  to  be  a  Christian 
believer  is  simply  to  acknowledge  the  divine  authority 
of  Christ  as  our  Lord  and  Master  in  religion,  what 
shall  we  say  to  our  Protestant  Popes,  the  imposers  of 
metaphysical  creeds  ?  You  set  aside  as  insufficient  the 
foundation  on  which  Christ  and  his  Apostles  built  the 
Church.  For  the  only  doctrine  which  they  declared 
fundamental,  you  substitute  that  of  a  Trinity  of  co- 
equal persons  in  the  Godhead,  a  human  speculation  of 
which  we  find  no  trace  in  Christian  history  for  more 
than  three  hundred  years  after  Christ.  Who  gave  you 
the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  ?  Show  us  your 
credentials.  Is  it  possible  that  you,  mere  fallible  men, 
have  presumed  to  do  this,  without  an  express  commis- 
sion from  God  ?  E.  A. 


THE  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIAN  CREED. 


BY   ORVILLE  DEWEY,  D.  D. 

"  Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  —  Matthew  xxviii.  19. 

THESE  words  set  forth  the  primitive  creed  of  Chris- 
tianity. As  they  have  been  fully  discussed  of  late,  both 
by  the  pulpit  and  the  press,  I  hasten  to  say  that  I  do 
not  propose  to  enter  into  any  speculative  controversy 
about  them.  I  am  quite  content  with  the  discussion 
which  has  lately  been  given  them  on  our  part ;  *  and 
my  design  is  simply  to  follow  that  discussion,  with 
some  thoughts  upon  their  positive  and  vital  meaning 
and  significance. 

All  formulas  are  liable,  through  constant  repetition, 
to  lose  the  sense  which  they  originally  conveyed.  Un- 
ending scholastic  controversy  has  increased  the  tendency 
in  this  case.  And  as  we  reject  the  common,  Church 
construction,  we  are  the  more  liable  not  sufficiently  to 
consider  the  stupendous  burden  of  meaning  which  is 
borne  by  the  words,  "  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost." 
Just  as  the  word  "Trinity"  has  so  little  in  it  of  the 
divine  idea  and  essence,  that  it  can  be  freely  applied  to 
a  building,  —  to  a  college  or  church.  We  could  not 
say  —  pointing  to  a  building  —  this  is  the  God  College 

*  I  mean,  in  the  foregoing  volume. 
15 


226  THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

or  the  God  Church.  But  we  say,  Trinity  Church  or 
Trinity  College,  because  the  word  is  a  mere  abstraction. 

But  the  form  of  words  in  our  text,  is,  in  its  true 
meaning,  the  farthest  possible  from  being  an  abstrac- 
tion. I  know  not  any  words  in  language,  of  such  depth 
and  vitality  as  these.  And  I  would  fain  do  something 
to  rescue  them  from  that  hard,  abstract,  and  conven- 
tional sense  which  controversy  and  constant  usage  have 
given  them  ;  and  would  awaken,  if  I  could,  some  new, 
fresh,  and  living  apprehension  of  their  power  and  beauty. 

The  great,  original,  and  peculiar  creed  of  Christianity, 
I  say,  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  For  the  unity  and  spirituality  of  God 
are  not  the  peculiar  teachings  of  Christianity.  They 
had  been  taught  in  the  Hebrew  system.  But  that  God, 
the  Infinite  Being,  is  our  Father ;  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  highest  son  of  God,  the  highest  manifestation  and 
image  of  the  Divine ;  and  that  there  is  a  spirit  and 
power  of  God,  manifested  in  the  world  and  in  human 
souls  ;  —  these  are  the  strong  reliances,  the  supporting 
pillars,  of  our  Christian  faith. 

The  Teacher  had  instructed  his  disciples ;  he  had 
instructed  them  on  purpose  to  make  them  missionaries 
to  the  nations ;  and  now,  about  to  part  from  them,  he 
gives  them  this  solemn  charge :  "  Go  and  teach  all 
nations,"  —  the  word  translated  "  teach  "  means,  as  you 
know,  to  disciple,  or  make  disciples  of,  — "  baptizing 
them  in,  or  into,  the  name "  —  i.  e.  into  the  acknowl- 
edgment —  "  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."  Baptism — laving  with  water — had  long 
been  used  as  an  expressive  symbol\>f  inward  purifica- 
tion, not  only  among  the  Hebrews,  but  among  many 


THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  227 

other  nations.  And  there  is  reason  to  believe,  though 
it  has  been  made  a  subject  of  learned  question,  that  for 
some  centuries  before  the  time  of  Christ,  baptism  had 
been  among  the  Jews  the  specific  proselyte's  rite, — 
the  rite,  i.  e.  applied  to  converts  from  heathenism,  as 
an  emblem  of  the  inward  purification  required  of  them. 
It  is  observable  that  our  Saviour  adopts  the  words  with- 
out explanation,  as  if  their  use  was  familiar  and  their 
meaning  well  understood.  As  men  had  been  baptized, 
and  by  that  formal  act  visibly  received  into  the  bosom 
of  Judaism,  so  were  they  now  to  be  baptized,  i.  e. 
openly  brought  into  the  bosom  of  Christianity ;  and  the 
sum  of  Christianity  is  here  set  forth  as  the  doctrine  and 
power  in  the  soul,  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 

This  language,  I  may  observe  in  passing,  carries  with 
it  demonstrative  proof  that  the  Gospel,  in  the  mind  of 
Jesus,  was  more  than  a  system  of  natural  religion ;  that 
he  himself  was  more  than  a  mere  human  teacher,  like 
Socrates  or  Confucius,  or  even  like  David  or  Isaiah. 
Not  to  say  that  his  language  everywhere  implied  such 
a  consciousness  of  union  with  God  as  no  other  being  on 
earth  ever  felt,  what  blasphemy  must  it  not  have  been, 
without  that  consciousness,  to  have  placed  himself  in 
such  a  relation,  to  have  put  his  name  into  that  awful 
formula  !  Imagine  any  other  person  —  imagine  John 
to  have  said,  "  In  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  John, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost " !  If  any  one,  to  escape  the 
conclusion,  shall  deny  that  Jesus  ever  used  those  words, 
—  if  he  can  believe  that  such  a  signal  and  final  charge 
was  either  fabricated  or  falsified  or  misreported  by  the 
Evangelist,  —  thenfcertainly  nothing  in  the  record  can 
be  relied  upon  as  having  been  spoken  by  Christ ;  there 


228  THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

is  not  a  single  shred  of  the  historic,  matter-of-fact  New 
Testament  left  to  hang  to ;  and  the  whole  grand  and 
stable  Christianity  has  no  other  basis  than  the  vague 
and  idle  hearsay  of  mythic  dreamers. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  consider  the  separate  articles 
of  the  great  Christian  Creed. 

First,  the  doctrine  of  the  Father :  the  doctrine  that 
teaches  us  to  address  the  Supreme  Being,  not  with  the 
title  of  Creator  only,  nor  of  Upholder,  nor  of  Ruler,  nor 
of  Benefactor  only,  but  by  that  most  endearing  of  all 
names,  a  name  indicative  of  a  personal  care  and  interest 
for  his  creatures,  —  the  name  of  Father. 

Let  us  trace  for  a  moment  the  history  of  men's  ideas 
of  God,  in  order  to  see  what  place  and  value  attach  to 
our  Christian  idea.  In  the  range  of  human  opinion, 
there  are  two  extremes,  equally  remote  from  this  idea ; 
they  are  known  in  philosophy  under  the  names  of  feti- 
cism  and  pantheism.  The  first  of  these,  marking  the 
very  beginnings  of  human  thought,  in  some  sort  identi- 
fied God  with  the  mere  visible  fact  and  force  of  nature ; 
the  mountain,  the  ocean,  the  storm,  the  thunder,  or  the 
rudest  and  hugest  idol,  the  most  literal  representation 
of  material  force,  was,  as  it  were,  God  to  the  rude  chil- 
dren of  the  elder  world.  The  other  extreme,  pantheism, 
was  a  later  development  of  thought,  and  regarded  God, 
not  as  a  person  at  all,  still  less  as  an  idol,  but  as  the 
impersonal  and  unconscious  essence  of  all  nature  and 
life.  The  extremes,  you  perceive,  approach  each  other ; 
feticism  and  pantheism  alike  approach  to  the  worship 
of  nature  ;  but  in  passing  from  one  to  the  other,  there 
is  an  immense  circle  of  thought,  in^hich  lie  many  and 
various  forms  of  human  faith.  Beginning,  that  is  to 


THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  229 

say,  with  the  earliest  and  rudest  form  of  thought,  and 
coming  down,  we  meet  with  polytheism,  idolatry,  an- 
thropomorphism, the  unity  and  spirituality  of  the  di- 
vine nature,  and,  in  later  days,  philosophic  theism, 
falling  and  fading  away  into  pantheism,  i.  e.  into  the 
notion  of  a  diffused  immensity  of  the  Supreme  Exist- 
ence, which  leaves  no  proper  sense  of  its  presence  or 
inspection,  or  concern  with  human  affairs. 

Among  these  systems  takes  its  pre-eminent  place,  the 
idea  of  a  Father  in  heaven  ;  of  a  God  who  is  love  ;  of 
an  infinite  and  all-sustaining  goodness,  without  whom 
not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground,  whose  care  extends  to 
the  humblest  things  on  earth, — how  much  more  to  crea- 
tures of  a  rational  and  spiritual  nature ;  and  this  great 
and  sacred,  this  all-attractive  and  winning  idea  of  the 
Supreme  Nature,  we  receive  and  cherish  as  the  first 
article  of  our  Christian  creed.  Let  us  consider  it. 

In  looking  at  the  condition  of  the  human  race,  I  do 
not  know  that  anything  is  more  mysterious  to  me,  than 
that  ignorance  of  God  which  has  prevailed  over  all  the 
early  ages,  and,  indeed,  still  prevails.  That  a  being  of 
infinite  perfection  and  goodness  should  have  suffered  his 
creatures  for  ages  to  bow  down  to  stocks  and  stones, 
to  worship  for  himself  the  monsters  of  their  own  imagi- 
nation ;  that  he  should  suffer  now,  even  in  Christian 
lands,  so  many  to  be  the  slaves  of  superstition,  —  this  is 
the  mystery ;  and  it  is  far  more  trying  to  my  faith  than 
it  is  to  believe  that  he  has  interposed  from  time  to  time, 
to  roll  off  this  dark  cloud  of  ignorance  and  this  heavy 
burden  of  fear  and  misery  from  the  world.  What  could 
more  pain  a  noble-minded  man,  a  good  and  kind  parent, 
than  to  see  himself  so  misapprehended  by  his  children, — 


230  THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

to  see  them  cowering  around  him  with  fear  and  dread, 
when  all  his  heart  was  love  and  tenderness  ?  It  is  a 
mystery,  I  say ;  and  it  is  more  trying  to  my  faith  than 
miracles.  But  this  is  what  I  have  thought  upon  it :  If 
the  Infinite  Parent  saw  that  his  earthly  children  must 
work  up  their  way  to  light  from  an  infancy  of  the  race ; 
that  it  was  best  for  them  ;  that  it  was  the  only  way  for 
them,  as  improvable,  moral  beings ;  that  such  fear  was 
a  better  and  juster  sentiment  than  no  fear  at  all ;  that 
human  society,  that  the  human  race,  could  not  subsist 
any  way  without  it ;  and  that  for  men  and  to  men  in 
their  early  ignorance,  this  exaggerated  and  superstitious 
fear  was  right,  as  being  the  best  they  could  render; 
nay,  more,  that,  as  for  worshipping  a  being  of  their  own 
imagination  or  idea,  they  must  worship  such  an  one; 
that  their  worship  could  not  advance  beyond  their  cul- 
ture ;  that  our  own,  in  fact,  is  but  one  stage  of  necessary 
imperfection ;  —  then,  I  think,  we  may  understand  some- 
thing of  this  great  mystery. 

But  the  ages  slowly  rolled  on,  constantly  but  slowly 
improving,  till  the  old  Hebrew  prophets,  standing  in  the 
centre  of  the  then  most  cultivated  world,  —  Egypt,  Phoe- 
nicia, and  Assyria  lying  around  them,  and  almost  with- 
in the  reach  of  their  voice,  —  proclaimed  the  unity  and 
spirituality  of  God.  And  afterwards,  it  may  incidentally 
be  observed,  Mahomet,  on  the  same  central  theatre,  took 
up  the  same  great  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God ;  and, 
though  with  violence  and  blood,  he  propagated  it  among 
nations  that  had  not  yet  received  it. 

But  the  unity  of  God  may  consist  with  stupendous 
errors ;  the  one  God  may,  to  the  J|uman  mind,  be  as 
dreadful  as  many ;  and  in  the  fulness  of  time  came,  by 


THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  231 

Jesus  Christ,  the  revelation  of  God  as  our  Father  in 
heaven.  It  is  true,  the  ascription  of  that  name  had 
been  heard  before  in  the  world.  Among  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  the  Supreme  Being  had  been  denominated 
"the  Father  Omnipotent;"  "the  Father  of  gods  and 
men."  And  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  we  meet  with 
those  most  tender  and  touching  words,  "  Like  as  a  fa- 
ther pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that 
fear  him ;  for  he  knoweth  our  frame,  he  remembereth 
that  we  are  dust."  Still  in  contradistinction  to  the 
Greek  and  Roman  tone,  and  in  a  fuller  unfolding  of  the 
Hebrew  sense,  Jesus  taught  that  God  is  our  Father. 
Still  his  teaching  vindicated  that  which  John  averred, 
when  he  said,  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time ; 
the  only  begotten  Son,  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Fa- 
ther, he  hath  declared  him."  No  mortal  teacher  ever 
uttered  the  word  "  Father,"  when  speaking  of  God,  so 
frequently  and  so  emphatically,  or  in  such  manner,  as  he 
did  ;  from  no  human  lips  did  it  ever  fall  in  such  gracious 
and  winning  accents.  "  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord 
of  heaven  and  earth ;  even  so,  Father,  for  so  it  seemed 
good  in  thy  sight ;  for  I  am  in  the  Father,  and  the  Fa- 
ther in  me  ;  I  will  pray  the  Father  for  you  ;  0  righteous 
Father,  the  world  hath  not  known  thee,  but  I  have  known 
thee,  and  these  have  known  that  thou  hast  sent  me  ;  O 
my  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me ; 
I  seek  not  mine  own,  but  the  will  of  my  Father ;  I  go 
to  the  Father,  for  my  Father  is  greater  than  I."  It  is 
manifest  that  a  new  idea  of  God  came  into  the  world 
through  this  teaching.  The  sense  of  an  infinite  benig- 
nity reigning  over  us,  the  sense  of  an  infinite  love  and 
pity  encompassing  us,  came  to  the  heart  of  the  world  as 
it  never  came  before. 


232  THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

Of  the  value  of  this  revelation,  such  is  my  view  that 
it  seems  to  me  fitly  to  occupy  the  first  place  in  the  Chris- 
tian creed ;  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  it  in  any 
exaggerated  terms.     If  the  awful  power  that  is  above 
and   around   us   is  —  Almighty   indeed  —  but  is   All- 
mighty  LOVE  ;  if  an  infinite  goodness  beams  from  every 
distant  star  and  glows  in  the  sunshine  that  falls  upon  my 
daily  path ;  if  an  all-transcending  loveliness  is  reflected 
in  this  fair  creation  around  us ;  if  it  is  indeed  a  bound- 
less love  of  good  and  of  beauty,  that  breathes  in  air,  and 
blossoms  in  the  flower,  and  waves  in  the  trees,  and  hov- 
ers, like  the  dove  of  peace,  over  the  trembling  waters ; 
if  the  "  sweet  heavens  "  have  touched  our  hearts  with 
tenderness  and  pity;  if  God,  the  Infinite  God,  is  our 
Father,  the  parent-being  who  looks  upon  our  being  with 
ineffable  kindness,  having  made  it  for  the  love  and  like- 
ness of  himself;  —  then  what  unutterable  glory  and 
beauty  are  here !     Then,  how  does  the  sense  of  this  love 
create,  as  the  Scripture  saith,  a  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth,  filling  them  with  a  presence,  a  life,  a  loveliness 
before  unknown!     Then,  too,  what  unutterable  argu- 
ment is  here,  for  mutual  love,  for  fidelity  to  every  holy 
claim,  for  cheerfulness  and  courage  and  hope  and  aspi- 
ration immortal!     Then  how  sounds  in  our  ears  that 
great  word,  God !     We  know,  alas !  what  it  was  to  the 
childhood  of  many  of  us,  —  so  dull,  so  gloomy,  so  repul- 
sive, —  but  now,  signal  and  security  for  infinite  joy ! 
Then  how  is  that  blessed  being  embosomed  in  infinite 
light,  raying  out  ineffable  splendors  upon  the  universe 
around ! 

Cut  off  that  friendly  light  that  beams  from  the  eternal 
throne;  leave  us  nothing  but  bare  and  abstract  unity 


THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  233 

and  spirituality ;  leave  us  nothing  but  unbending  fate  and 
eternal  order,  and  where  shall  our  natures  flee  for  ref- 
uge and  rest  ?  Who  and  where  is  he,  that  can  stand  in 
this  mighty  and  mysterious  universe,  independent  and 
alone  ?  And  who  is  so  unobservant  and  stupid  as  not 
to  feel  that  more  than  life  itself  is  the  spirit  of  life ; 
more  of  every  scene  in  which  we  live,  is  our  inward  im- 
pression than  our  outward  possession  ?  Place  us  in  any 
dwelling,  any  palace,  filled  with  every  possible  luxury 
and  comfort,  filled  with  beautiful  works  of  art ;  and  let 
it  be  the  house  of  an  enemy,  of  a  tyrant,  or  of  one  who 
cares  not  for  us,  and  it  would  be  hateful  to  us,  —  its 
splendid  apartments,  its  festal  lights,  its  gems  and  gold, 
all  hateful ;  but  let  it  be  the  house  of  our  friend,  of  our 
dearest  friend,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  us ;  it  is  a  place  of 
freedom  and  rest,  no  matter  what  house  it  be. 

It  is  much  to  believe  in  God.  That  which  we  be- 
lieve in,  so  believing,  is  a  stupendous  reality.  But 
if  I  may  believe  that  God  is  our  Father,  that  his  is 
an  infinitely  loving  nature,  my  whole  and  inmost  being 
dissolves  in  joy  and  gladness  at  that  truth.  It  is  not 
grateful  to  me,  I  will  confess  it,  —  this  demonstrative 
character  of  the  pulpit,  this  free  utterance  of  what  is 
inmost  and  most  sacred.  I  would  rather  meditate,  often, 
than  speak.  But  this  common,  this  vital  and  all-compre- 
hending good,  which  we  all  have  in  the  knowledge  of 
that  Infinite  Being,  in  whom  we  live  and  have  our 
being,  —  this  privilege  of  uttering  the  word  Father,  when 
we  speak  of  God,  —  meet  it  is,  for  the  sake  of  our  grati- 
tude and  trust,  that  we  should  set  it  forth,  as  the  chief 
blessing  of  our  existence,  the  stay  of  our  weakness,  the 
resource  of  our  affliction,  the  assurance  that  all  is  well ; 


234  THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

a  light  above  the  brightness  of  day,  a  life  that  partakes 
of  the  infinitude  of  life,  a  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of 
glory. 

I  scarcely  know  how  to  express  the  need  of  this  great 
reliance.  It  is  as  if  I  should  undertake  to  say  how 
much  I  need  the  air  I  breathe,  the  light  to  shine,  or 
the  friend  that  is  dearer  than  life.  A  mind  may  wander 
away  from  the  Parent-Mind ;  it  may  wander  into  the 
thin  abstraction,  the  breathless  void  of  pantheism.  I 
will  say  nothing  to  reproach  it  now ;  my  own  mind 
might  so  wander ;  but  this  would  be  inevitable,  —  I 
should  feel  as  if  the  fountain-life  of  my  spirit  were  dried 
up ;  my  strength  would  wither ;  my  sun  would  have 
gone  down ;  and  cheerless  and  dread  and  mournful 
would  be  the  spectacle  of  nature,  as  a  human  body  out 
of  which  the  soul  had  gone  and  left  it  but  a  beautiful 
idiot;  my  being  would  have  lost  its  centre,  —  the  centre 
on  which  hangs  all  life,  being,  blessing.  Blessing  !  — 
the  word  would  have  no  meaning ;  there  would  be  no 
blessing  on  earth,  no  benediction  in  the  heavens;  an 
orphaned  soul  would  be  every  reverent  and  true  soul ; 
seeking  a  Parent  that  it  should  never  find,  and  wander- 
ing in  recklessness,  distraction,  and  despair  through  a 
boundless  void.  Instead  of  this,  we  have  and  hold  the 
faith  which  Jesus  teaches,  of  a  Father  in  heaven. 

Let  us  now  come  to  the  second  article  of  the  origi- 
nal Christian  creed.  "  In  the  name  of  the  Father " 
is  the  expression  of  the  first.  "  And  of  the  Son"  —  this 
is  the  second  tenet  of  faith.  And  I  have  said  that  the 
place  which  Jesus  assigns  to  himself  in  the  great  com- 
mission under  which  the  new  religion  was  sent  out  into 
the  world,  is  the  assumption  on  his  part  of  more  than 
human  dignity. 


THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  235 

Let  us  put  aside  for  a  moment  our  faith  in  this 
matter,  and  contemplate  the  manifestation  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  mere  historic  fact;  let  us  look  at  him  as 
invested  with  attributes  and  claims,  concerning  which 
the  most  sceptical  have  no  doubt. 

For,  in  the  position  which  the  Christ  occupies  in  the 
world,  in  his  character,  in  the  very  ideal  of  him  drawn 
in  the  New  Testament,  it  is  necessary  to  explain  in 
some  way  a  very  wonderful  thing.  Jesus  is  not  an 
unmeaning  figure  in  history ;  it  is  not  one  that  can  any 
way  be  passed  by.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  entire 
range  of  all  recorded  knowledge  of  men,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world  to  the  present  day,  he  is  the 
most  conspicuous  personage ;  nay,  he  stands  alone,  he 
is  taken  up,  out  of  the  range  of  all  comparison  ;  indeed, 
his  isolation,  the  unapproachable  solitariness  of  his 
grandeur,  as  men  have  conceived  of  it,  has  been  greater 
than  the  wise  and  thoughtful  may  have  wished :  but  so 
it  is.  Such  is  the  ideal ;  so  it  exists  and  reigns,  and 
has  reigned  for  many  ages. 

Whence  did  it  spring  ?  What  was  the  original  shrine 
of  its  manifestation  and  seat  of  its  power  ?  No  school 
of  Grecian  intellect  nor  throne  of  Roman  dominion, 
but  a  humble  village-life  in  Judasa,  —  no  regal  court, 
nor  learned  institute,  but  a  manger  for  its  birthplace ; 
obscure  families  and  poor  disciples  for  its  compan- 
ionship ;  a  cross  for  ignominy,  and  a  forgotten  tomb 
for  burial,  —  that  is  all.  I  do  not  mean  to  lay  undue 
stress  upon  the  Hebrew  origin  of  this  miracle  of  time. 
It  would  have  been  in  fact  more  wonderful,  if  it  had 
appeared  in  Greece  or  Rome.  For  the  spiritualism 
of  the  Hebrew  books  was  certainly  the  greatest  in 


236  THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

the  world.  But  the  humility  of  its  origin  shows  that, 
for  its  unparalleled  impression  upon  the  world,  it  has 
been  indebted,  not  to  circumstances,  but  to  its  own  in- 
herent force  and  grandeur. 

Now  somebody  drew  the  picture  of  this  extraor- 
dinary being,  and  of  his  wonderful  life  and  teaching. 
The  record  purports  to  come  from  his  disciples.  It 
has  every  appearance  of  coming  from  eyewitnesses  ; 
the  early  Christian  communities  received  it  as  such; 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  doubt  its  genuineness.  But  sup- 
pose it  were  doubted ;  one  thing  at  least  is  certain,  — 
there  must  have  been  an  original  for  this  picture.  No- 
body could  have  imagined  it.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
indication  in  ancient  literature  of  any  ability  to  do  this. 
But  if  you  feel  that  no  one  man  could  do  it,  conceive 
of  the  utter  impossibility  of  several  writers  having 
agreed  in  drawing  the  lineaments  of  such  a  character 
and  life,  unless  the  original  had  existed.  And  really, 
with  reference  to  the  moral  impression  upon  my  own 
mind,  it  is  no  matter  who  wrote  the  Gospels.  Let  it  be 
the  disciples  or  somebody  else  ;  or  let  it  be,  if  any  one 
pleases  to  say  so,  that  it  is  a  myth,  —  that  the  popular 
impressions  in  any  way  wrought  themselves  into  the 
Evangelic  story.  Take  any  theory,  however  untenable 
and  baseless,  and  it  does  not  disturb  the  fact.  For 
there,  I  say,  stands  the  Great  Ideal,  as  to  all  its  leading 
traits,  in  unchallenged  majesty  and  beauty.  What  am 
I  to  think  of  it  ?  What  is  the  rational  account  that 
I  am  to  make  of  this  astonishing  phenomenon  ? 

Let  me  suppose  that  I  come  fresh,  and  every  way 
unprejudiced,  to  the  reading  of  the  Evangelical  narra- 
tives. Let  me  suppose  that  I  have  never  read  them 


THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  237 

before,  and  have  now  fallen  in  with  them  by  chance. 
In  my  study  of  the  world's  history,  which  I  have  pur- 
sued under  the  conviction  of  a  providential  order  in  it, 
I  have  come  down,  let  us  suppose,  to  the  Christian  era, 
and  I  open  the  Christian  records.  I  know  what  has 
gone  before.  I  have  seen  one  era  of  progress  opening 
upon  another,  and  have  observed  that  noticeable  order 
of  things,  by  which  at  the  head  of  all  these  eras  have 
stood  great  and  shining  men  to  preside  over  them,  — 
Confucius,  Menu,  Zoroaster,  Abraham,  Moses,  and 
Socrates.  I  know  all  these  men  ;  I  have  studied  their 
life ;  I  have  studied  their  character ;  I  have  studied 
their  words. 

But  how  inevitably  and  how  inexpressibly  should  I 
feel,  on  reading  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  that  here 
was  a  new  thing  in  the  world, — something  far  in  advance 
of  all  that  had  appeared  before.  I  am  not  anxious  to 
separate  this  excellence  from  all  other ;  I  only  say,  that 
it  is  above  all.  Simply  as  an  impartial  student  of  his- 
tory and  of  human  nature,  I  say,  " This  is  greatest!  — 
this  is  the  greatest  that  has  ever  appeared  among 
men  ! "  It  is  not  /  that  say  this,  as  a  disciple  ;  scep- 
tics have  agreed  with  believers  in  this  testimony,  and 
fifty  generations  of  men,  on  the  broadest  and  brightest 
field  of  human  culture,  with  one  voice  have  echoed  the 
words  of  the  Roman  Governor,  we  "  find  in  him  no 
fault  at  all."  This,  I  say,  —  taking  nothing  for  granted, 
having  nothing  to  do  with  critical  or  historical  ques- 
tions, —  is  the  simple  and  unbiassed,  and  indeed  irre- 
sistible, impression  which  every  reader  takes  from  the 
story  of  Jesus.  I  should  be  blinder  than  the  Jewish 
officers  sent  to  take  him,  if  I  did  not  say,  "  Never  man 


238  THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

spake  like  this  man,"  and  never  man  lived  like  this 
man.  I  should  be  more  prejudiced  than  the  Roman 
soldiers  who  crucified  him,  if  I  did  not  exclaim,  "  Truly 
this  was  the  Son  of  God  ! "  Such  deep  wisdom,  such 
heart-penetrating  insight  into  all  human  evil  and  need 
and  sorrow,  and  such  divine  power  to  extricate  human- 
ity from  its  bondage  and  misery  ;  such  fearless  courage 
and  such  winning  tenderness  united ;  such  rebuke,  and 
yet  such  pity ;  such  plainness  and  such  delicacy,  such 
loftiness  and  gentleness,  such  majesty  and  sweetness, 
such  love  and  patience,  such  spotless  purity,  such  fault- 
less perfection  !  —  never  has  a  being  stood  elsewhere 
upon  the  earth  like  this.  And  I  find,  too,  as  I  read 
the  history  of  subsequent  times,  that  nearly  twenty  cen- 
turies, in  their  solemn  train,  have  brought  offerings  — 
"  myrrh  and  frankincense  and  gold,"  ay,  and  affec- 
tions, tears,  and  worship  —  to  the  shrine  of  this  heav- 
enly purity  and  loveliness ;  and  if  I  believe  in  any 
providential  order  of  things  on  earth,  I  must  believe 
that  this  place  has  been  assigned  to  the  mission  of 
Jesus,  by  the  will  and  appointment  of  Heaven. 

Surely,  in  all  this  there  is  no  extravagance.  On  the 
contrary,  it  all  comes  short.  And  all  that  men  think 
yet,  about  the  Christ,  comes  short.  So  wrapped  about 
with  a  false  and  factitious  drapery  has  been  this  char- 
acter, that  none  of  us  have  seen  its  full  glory.  The 
Life  of  Christ  is  yet  to  be  written.  I  mean,  that  the 
true  and  great  comment  is  yet  to  be  written.  We  have 
had  histories  of  the  Christ ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  how 
cold,  dull,  technical  have  they  been !  scarcely,  indeed, 
readable.  The  Life  of  Jesus  is  yet  to  be  written.  This 
metaphysic  discussion  about  the  bare  person  of  the 


THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  239 

Christ,  —  Trinitarian  or  Unitarian  discussion,  —  alas  ! 
how  far  is  it  from  the  reverent  and  loving  contempla- 
tion of  that  divinest  beauty !  No,  it  is  an  effluence 
from  the  highest  perfection ;  it  is  an  outburst  into  this 
world,  of  a  heavenly  splendor ;  it  is  a  pitying  sorrow 
and  sacrifice  for  poor  and  erring  humanity ;  it  is  God 
with  us ;  —  this  is  the  mission  and  glory  of  Jesus.  And 
seeing  this,  nothing  in  the  New  Testament  is  hard  or 
strange  to  me.  Miracles  !  The  moral  miracle  makes 
every  other  easy  of  belief.  And  most  reasonable  it 
seems,  also,  that  Jesus  Christ  should  speak,  as  no  other 
being  ever  did,  of  his  relation  to  God,  of  God's  love 
and  approval  of  him,  of  his  reign  over  the  coming  ages, 
of  his  seat  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father ;  and  when 
he  commissioned  his  disciples  to  teach  the  nations,  that 
he  should  command  them  to  teach  "  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

"And  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  The  meaning  of  this 
third  tenet  of  faith  remains  to  be  set  forth.  It  is  the 
breathing  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
It  is  God,  not  only  as  above  humanity  and  the  paternal 
authority  and  goodness,  or  as  teaching  and  leading  it  by 
his  Son,  but  as  in  humanity.  This  is  a  great  and  mo- 
mentous truth,  the  practical  complement  of  all  other 
truths.  For  if  a  divine  life  were  not  breathing  in  the 
soul,  no  power  from  without  could  help  us.  It  is  an 
everlasting  truth.  Many  seem  to  conceive  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  as  if  that  power  were  introduced  into  the  world 
by  Christianity.  But  no,  it  is  only  now  more  distinctly 
recognized,  as  for  ever  in  the  world.  From  the  begin- 
ning, through  all  ages,  the  Spirit  of  God  has  moved 
upon  the  moral  chaos  of  the  world.  And  since  it  is 


240  THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

a  chaos,  since  darkness  and  discouragement  are  ever 
brooding  upon  the  heart  of  man,  it  is  a  most  necessary 
truth.  Man,  it  tells  us,  —  this  poor,  frail  man,  —  is 
not  earth  and  dust,  is  not  animal  instinct  and  passion 
alone,  is  not  forsaken  of  his  Maker ;  there  is  a  Spirit 
of  God  causing  itself  to  be  heard  and  felt  in  the  deep 
recesses  of  his  heart. 

You  will  not  understand  me,  of  course,  to  speak  of 
this  Spirit,  or  spiritual  manifestation  of  God,  as  a  per- 
sonality distinct  from  God  himself.  What  conceivable 
need  is  there  of  such  a  distinction !  We  call  it  the 
Spirit  of  God,  because  it  is  God  manifested  in  the  spirit, 
—  in  the  spirit  of  man;  manifested  as  the  wind  that 
bloweth  where  it  listeth,  of  which  we  hear  the  sound, 
see  the  effects,  but  know  not  whence  it  cometh,  nor 
whither  it  goeth. 

There  is  such  a  mysterious  power  abroad  among 
men.  Reckon  up  all  the  visible  and  known  forces  in 
the  world, — the  volcano,  the  earthquake,  the  storm,  the 
lightning;  bring  into  the  account  all  human  faculties 
and  agencies,  —  reason,  will,  passion ;  and  there  is  yet 
left  a  power  not  included  in  the  estimate,  — u  a  still, 
small  voice,"  but  to  the  spiritual  nature,  louder  than  the 
thunder,  swifter  than  the  lightning,  deep-penetrating 
beyond  earthquake  throes.  What  is  it?  What  is  it 
that  in  spite  of  will,  in  spite  of  all  that  man  can  do  to 
resist  it,  shakes  the  soul  of  the  guilty  transgressor  ? 
It  is  the  Spirit  of  God.  What  is  it  that  makes  all  base 
self-indulgence  feel  itself  to  be  so  mean,  so  poor,  so 
low,  —  that  will  not  let  it  hold  up  its  head,  and  claim 
the  honor  and  comfort  of  virtue  ?  It  is  the  Spirit  of 
God.  It  is  a  power  beyond,  above,  independent  of 


THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  241 

man.  What  was  it  that  made  the  bad,  bold  Anthony 
bow  his  head  between  his  hands  for  three  days,  when 
he  fled  from  the  battle  of  Actium,  to  follow  his  guilty 
paramour  of  Egypt  ?  The  poor,  proud,  wretched 
Anthony  did  n't  want  to  feel  so ;  he  could  n't  help  it. 
And  what  is  it  that  breathes  the  sweetness  of  all  holy 
thoughts  through  the  soul,  —  that  flows  over  our  dark- 
ened, humbled,  prostrate  humanity,  like  heaven's  morn- 
ing light  over  the  night-bound  and  overshadowed  earth  ? 
It  is  the  Spirit  of  God. 

There  is  a  power  in  the  world,  that  is  not  set  down 
in  any  of  our  categories  of  human  purposes  or  human 
wills.  There  is  a  power  that  holds  up  the  human 
world  from  sinking  to  utter  ruin ;  that  arrests  lawless 
license ;  that  restores  decaying  civilization ;  that  re- 
vives dying  religion;  that  feeds  the  wasted  fountains 
of  holy  inspiration.  There  is  a  power  that  awes  the 
bad,  and  cheers  the  good,  and  supports  the  stricken,  and 
stands  by  the  martyr  in  his  agony ;  yes,  and  will  stand 
by  us  in  the  silent  strife  and  agony  of  our  hearts  to  be 
true  and  faithful.  It  is  the  Spirit  of  God.  Strong  and 
tender,  powerful  and  pitying,  almighty  and  all-merciful, 
—  there  is  a  spirit  of  God  within  us. 

Such  I  understand  to  be  the  comprehensive  and  car- 
dinal faith  of  Christianity, —  faith  in  the  Father,  and 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  Such,  I  have  no  doubt, 
was  the  faith  of  the  primitive  churches  and  ages  ; 
afterwards  wrought  by  fanciful  speculation  into  the 
hard,  dry,  abstract  dogma  of  a  metaphysical  Trinity. 
Such  I  could  wish  had  been  our  own  and  only  pro- 
fession of  faith,  as  a  Christian  body ;  and  indeed  such 
16 


242  THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

substantially  it  has  been,  and  is.  For  we  never  liked 
this  scholastic  dispute  about  the  persons  in  the  Trinity ; 
and  have  engaged  in  it  only  because  it  has  been  forced 
upon  us. 

There  was  a  work  published  a  few  years  ago,  entitled 
"  Hippolytus  and  his  Age."  Hippolytus  was  Bishop  of 
Portus,  the  port  of  Rome,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  late 
in  the  second  century.  The  work  consists  of  a -book 
of  Hippolytus  on  Heresies,  discovered  not  many  years 
since ;  and'  of  sundry  theses  and  discussions  connected 
with  it,  by  the  Chevalier  Bunsen,  long  the  Prussian 
Ambassador  in  England,  a  man  of  eminent  learning 
and  worth,  and  held  in  high  honor  and  confidence  both 
at  home  and  abroad. 

Mr,  Bunsen  states  the  cardinal  points  of  the  Christian 
creed  in  the  following  terms  :  — 

First,  the  Unity  of  God,  as  the  eternal  Father,  is  the 
fundamental  doctrine  of  Christianity. 

Secondly,  the  Son  is  Jesus  Christ  as  the  adequate 
manifestation  in  the  highest  sense ;  every  true  believer 
is  Son,  in  a  state  of  diminishing  imperfection,  being 
brother  to  Christ  in  the  Spirit.  But  Jesus  alone  is  the 
incarnation  of  the  Word  (Ao'-yos).  He  therefore  is 
called  by  St.  John  "the  only  begotten"  (Unigenitus). 

Thirdly,  the  Spirit  has  not  had,  and  is  not  to  have, 
any  finite  individual  embodiment;  it  appears  in  finite 
reality,  only  as  the  totality  or  universality  of  the  believ- 
ers, as  the  congregation  of  believing  mankind  called 
Church.  :  But  this  Spirit,  substantially,  is  not  the  spirit 
of  any  human  individual,  or  of  any  body  of  men,  but  the 
Spirit  of  God. 


THE    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED.  243 

"  This,"  says  Mr.  Bunsen,  "  is  the  statement  of  the 
Bible ;  and  to  accept  and  believe  this  statement  as  the 
revelation  of  divine  truth,  this,  and  this  alone,  forms  the 
doctrinal  test  of  the  Apostolical  age." 

Thus  speaks  a  man  of  reputed  learning  and  ortho- 
doxy ;  and  with  his  statement  we  entirely  agree. 

Is  not  the  time  coming,  is  it  not  near,  when  this  mys- 
tifying, misleading,  and,  I  am  tempted  to  say,  irreverent 
controversy  about  the  scholastic  dogma  of  the  Trinity, 
is  to  give  place  to  the  simple  and  solemn  Evangelic 
verity  and  truth  "  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost"? 

This  simple  verity  takes  hold  of  the  heart ;  and  I 
must  not  finish  this  exposition  of  the  Christian  creed 
without  distinctly  saying  in  close,  that  no  creed  can 
avail  us  anything,  unless  it  restores,  reforms,  regener- 
ates the  soul  into  the  image  of  God,  into  the  imitation 
of  Jesus  Christ,  into  communion  with  the  Spirit  of  the 
All-pure,  the  All-holy.  To  be  born  again,  —  not  once 
.only,  as  coming  into  this  world,  but  to  be  born  again 
spiritually,  —  of  the  Spirit  of  God ;  to  renounce  our  self- 
ishness, our  self-will ;  resolvedly,  and  by  a  true  repent- 
ance, to  put  away  every  sin ;  to  welcome,  and  embrace 
with  a  loving  heart,  God's  love  and  mercy ;  to  find  this 
strength  in  all  temptation,  and  this  resource  in  all  afflic- 
tion ;  to  be  true  and  pure,  to  be  free  and  fearless,  to  be 
humble  and  patient,  to  be  submissive  and  thankful,  to 
be  gentle  and  to  be  strong  ;  to  make  our  life  all  sacred- 
ness  and  goodness ;  to  make  our  spirit  all  sweetness  and 
devotion ;  and  thus  to  be  happy,  a  thousand-fold  beyond 
all  that  this  world  can  make  us,  —  thus  to  be  happy, 


244  THE   PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIAN    CREED. 

say  rather  blessed,  in  time  and  in  eternity ;  —  this,  and 
this  alone,  is  the  consummated  and  inly-working  faith 
of  Christianity,  —  the  faith  of  "the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 


THE    END. 


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